Trouble in Turn2

Today I have some more thoughts on the Close and Late stats and the 2008 numbers through the Charlotte race. Before digging into the numbers, I thought I’d offer a few more general thoughts on what this stat will hopefully mean.

The point of looking at the drivers that lead races late is to show who was in position to win. It doesn’t predict who will win or say who should win, only who is peaking at the right time. Let’s take the recent race at Charlotte as an example. Brian Vickers, Dale Earnhardt Jr and Kurt Busch all had great cars and led a lot of laps. Unfortunately they each had problems and were not in position at the right time. Now look at Tony Stewart and Kasey Kahne. Stewart didn’t lead a lot of laps early on and was actually in danger of getting lapped early in the race, but with 60 laps to go he was in the top five and led 9 laps. He didn’t win, but he and his team found a way to peak at the right time. The same is true for Kahne. He was in position to take advantage of Johnson’s blown engine and Stewart’s blown tire and win. It wasn’t luck that Kahne was in second at the time.

Sometimes it’s easy to dismiss a tough loss as bad luck, but if I’m the head of a multi-million dollar racing team, I would hope it was more than that. A flat tire or blown engine could be completely out the a team’s control, but it also could be something the team overlooked or misjudged. Even with “racing luck”, the team and driver have to do everything they can to be in position to win. Look at Jeff Gordon in the same race. He was terrible all night, but used good fuel strategy and a little good fortune to finish 4th. Let’s say for the next five races Stewart and the #20 team

With that out of the way, let’s look at the numbers for 2008 so far. I tracked each driver that has led a lap in the final 15% (that’s 15% of the scheduled distance, green-white-checker laps are extra) of a race. Late Laps is the number of laps led in the final 15% of all races in 2008. Total Laps is the total number of laps led in 2008. Pct is the percentage of late laps led divided by the total number of laps led. Late Races is the number of races a driver has led in the final 15%. Wins is the number of , um, wins in 2008.

I’m still trying to determine what the numbers mean exactly, but here’s a few ideas.

• The statistics listed above need to be combined in order for some meaningful context. Michael Waltrip’s Late Lap percentage looks great, but it’s based on four laps from one race. It’s hard to imagine anyone believing Waltrip is poised for a win anytime soon.

• Carl Edwards has led three races late and won all three. It appears that he was simply the dominant car in these races. Obviously that’s the easiest way to ensure victory.

• Based on the number of races they’ve led late, Tony Stewart, Dale Earnhardt Jr and Denny Hamlin appear likely to win races soon. Earnhardt has led a lot of laps, although fewer late in races. That said he still has been in the hunt late in races four different times. The same is true of Stewart. He has held late leads at Daytona, Bristol, and Charlotte with single digit laps left only to miss out each time. Slipping up late in races is not something that Stewart will continue.

• Jeff Gordon has led one lap late in races and Greg Biffle zero.

• Through 12 races, 15 different drivers have already led laps in the final 15% of races. Last year a total of 21 drivers led laps all season. That either means that there is more passing for the lead late, or teams are more willing to gamble for track position. It’s hard to say which is more correct.

I’m really excited about these statistics (nerd alert!), and I think there’s some valuable information. Now I just need more numbers from past seasons and more direction on how exactly the information can be used. As always, I’d love to hear what my readers have to say about all of this. Thanks for reading.

Elevators and Imitators

Eleven races into the season is almost one third of the way home. Some teams are exceeding expectations while others are underachieving. That’s obvious enough. While the points show one picture, the driver ratings can reveal some differences. A driver with a high driver rating shows

Carl Edwards is 4th in driver rating but sits in 7th place in the standings. Obviously without the 100 point penalty Edwards would be 4th in points. Jeff Gordon is 10th in points but owns the 7th best driver rating. A mechanical failure at Daytona and a nasty crash at Las Vegas erased otherwise strong runs at these tracks. It highlights how damaging engine failures and bad finishes can be to a driver’s points. Outperforming your points total is a good sign for the rest of the summer. I fully expect both Edwards and Gordon to climb higher in the standings and score more top 5’s.

Jeff Burton is second in the points but 8th in driver rating. It’s pretty clear that Burton’s great start is due more to compiling points and avoiding trouble than it is having fast, dominant cars. Avoiding trouble is obviously a testament to Burton’s skill, but it’s harder to sustain than simply running in the top five every week. Every driver will lose an engine, get caught up in a wreck or get a flat tire at the wrong time. Making your own luck by having top five cars every week is a lot more reliable than trying to outlast everyone and sneaking into the top ten or top five.

Elevators: Drivers with the biggest positive differences between points and driver rating
Casey Mears +6
Elliott Sadler +5
Dave Blaney +5
Matt Kenseth +4

Imitators: Drivers with the biggest negative differences between points and driver rating
David Gilliland -7
Clint Bowyer -6
Jeff Burton -6
Bobby Labonte -5
Travis Kvapil -4

The numbers give a decent snapshot of who is running well compared to finishing well. Maybe over or underachieving is the wrong word. Drivers deserve credit for passing as many cars as they can, with whatever method they can. The only point of these numbers is to get a glimpse of which drivers are capable of a strong summer or who might be ripe for a tumble.

Things can obviously change. The CoT is far from perfected, so there is a great opportunity for teams to find new advantages. Burton and RCR could suddenly find something in a test that pushes their cars closer to the front. Or maybe, in the copycat world of NASCAR, everyone might simply catch up to Gibbs and Roush and even the playing field. Younger drivers will likely gain more confidence and experience which could lead to better results. An older driver might get a new crew chief that rejuvenates a team. A team that suffers from bad luck suddenly feels the need to change personnel, resulting in even worse performances. There are tons of variables that could change the numbers.

So who do you think could climb the ladder or go down the chute this summer?

A few notes about driver ratings:
-Jeff Burton leads all drivers with a 116.9 average driver rating through three races. If not for a late mechanical problem, he would also have three top ten finishes and probably the points lead. Burton is proving that last year was not a fluke. Maybe he simply slumped in 2004-2005.

-Not only has Mark Martin scored three straight top five finishes, but his driver rating was above 100 in all three races. For the next two weeks you will hear nothing from me about “will he or won’t he?”. I think the rest of the NASCAR galaxy is covering this enough.

-Judging by their driver ratings, David Ragan and Robby Gordon have overachieved so far. Gordon’s average rating is 64.2 with an average finish of 17.7. Ragan’s average rating is 49.0, but his average finish is 19.3. Gordon’s popularity rating is also rather low after his poor judgement led to wrecking Casey Mears at Las Vegas.

-Of drivers making three races, Dale Jarrett and Kyle Petty have miserable ratings of 29.0 and 30.7 respectively. Not coincidentally both drivers are toeing the top 35 line. At least Petty has had recent success at Atlanta (8th, 17th in 2006).

Top 35 Update:
The water got murkier after Las Vegas for the drivers trying to crack the top 35. Joe Nemechek and Johnny Sauter suffered early crashes. Paul Menard got trapped two laps down because of a speeding penalty, and Sterling Marlin lost an engine late. At least they made the race. David Reutimann, Brian Vickers, Jeremy Mayfield and AJ Allmendinger lost further ground to the pack. If 2007 owners points kicked in today, Nemechek, Sauter, Marlin and Jarrett would be in. Kasey Kahne, Scott Riggs, Dave Blaney and the 21 car (Ken Schrader/Jon Wood) would have to make the race on time.

And then there is Michael Waltrip. He is now averaging -9 points per week. Last year was a disaster, but at least he was able to make the majority of races and had to buy his way into the Coca Cola 600 to appease his sponsor NAPA. It turns out that was nothing compared to 2007. In three Cup races, Waltrip has a -100 point penalty and missed two other races.

Fact of the Week
Last year after three races, there were 12 drivers that had completed 100% of the laps. This year only five drivers have completed 100% of the laps through three races. Mark Martin, Jeff Burton, Matt Kenseth, Jeff Gordon and Kyle Busch.

My Three Bugs for the Week:
-It seems like every race during the final green flag run, the announcers will say, “The leaders just ran their fastest laps of the day.” This shouldn’t be a surprise, yet Larry McReynold’s voice rises when he says this. They spend the first 300+ miles fine-tuning their cars, then get fresh tires. Not to mention the fact that it’s, well, the end of the race. So to reduce to the simplest terms, the best cars, tweaked towards perfection, are at the front of the pack as the race winds down, increasing the intensity and need to go faster. I don’t know if it could get more basic.

-Why Cousin Carl? It doesn’t make sense for a nickname. Flipper has meaning. Tony Stewart dubbing Edwards Eddie Haskell works. Aside from the obvious alliteration, Cousin Carl holds zero logic. What is next, Brother Boris? Nephew Nemechek?

-The unofficial office cheerleader. Nearly every office has one. It’s the person that organizes the potluck for lunch, decorates other people’s desks for birthdays, and asks people to chip in for the Powerball drawing. These things are fine by themselves. Plenty of people enjoy the diversions and they can boost office morale. I also can’t take issue with the fact they aren’t work related, since 90% of this blog is written during work hours. I may have diversions at work, but when things need to get done I do them right away. The problem is that in my experience, the cheerleader is the first employee to complain about being too busy. Said person might have more time if they weren’t always willing to pick up Starbucks for everyone or playing Secret Santa.

What’s bugging you today or this week? Let me know.