Trouble in Turn2

After another disappointing and undeserved finish for Tony Stewart and the #20 team, it’s easy to wonder what’s wrong this year. The truth is, while some of their finishes have been lower than usual, Stewart rarely wins before June. In his 32 career wins, he has only won four races prior to June. In the last five seasons, he has won 12 races in the summer months and 5 wins each in July and August. Whatever the reason, Tony Stewart really loves the summer. Why? It’s probably a combination of many things. He’s excellent at many of the tracks like road courses, Daytona, Chicago, Indianapolis and Loudon. Maybe the hotter weather caters more to his driving style. It might be that Gibbs does more testing in the spring and he reaps the results in the summer (that was certainly the case in 2005), or that they experiment a little more at the start of seasons with the knowledge that the #20 car is good enough to be in contention at the end of the year.

While Stewart is exceptional in the summer months, other drivers like Jeff Gordon and Kurt Busch have also traditionally hit their strides when the sun comes out. Here is a breakdown of the drivers with at least three wins in the summer since 2003 [note: due to some minor schedule tweaks, some races have changed months from year to year. I used the following breakdown. June (Dover, Pocono, Michigan, Sonoma). July (Daytona, Loudon, Chicago, Pocono). August (Indianapolis, Watkins Glen, Michigan, Bristol, Darlington/California).

I’m not sure why, but I think there’s a problem with my table, keep scrolling. Sorry

Time permitting I hope to delve further into trends like this over a whole season. Looking at things like teams or drivers that peak at the right time, most successful drivers in the Chase, etc.

It’s your turn, tell me what the numbers mean to you. Are you Smoke fans excited for July? Can Kenseth and Kurt Busch restart their seasons? Why do some drivers thrive in the heat? Or just tell me it’s hogwash.

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.

It’s a stupid baseball statistic, but it makes a lot of sense in NASCAR. The close and late statistic has begun to creep into baseball discussion. How does a hitter fare when it’s a one or two run game and in the seventh inning or later. The trouble with using this criteria in baseball is that a run is important regardless of what inning it is scored, they all count the same (no matter what the knucklehead on talk radio might tell you). In NASCAR the only thing that matters is who is around at the end. A driver could be terrible all day, but if they can figure out how to lead the one lap that matters, then all is forgotten. Look at some of the races this year. Ryan Newman at Daytona and Jeff Burton at Bristol both won by passing more dominant cars in the final laps. Burton is somewhat of an expert on leading at the right time. His last three Cup wins have come from a total of 9 laps led. That’s peaking at the right time and ultimately is what matters.

The key is making your way to the front at the right time. If a team can get into the top five in the final 10-15% of a race, that’s close enough to be in position to win. It obviously doesn’t guarantee victory, sometimes one car is going to dominate no matter what, but it increases your chances. A top five position with means that you can capitalize if another car slips up, or allows you to make a daring pass and hang on for the final laps.

How do you get track position at the end?

There are three basic ways that a team can use to get prime track position near the end of a race.
A Quick car- The most obvious, and usually most assured way to climb into the top 5 or better is to have a fast car. Teams spend the first 300-400 miles of a race improving the handling of their cars so that they are turning the quickest laps at the end. Good teams like the #48, #24 and #20 don’t always spend an entire afternoon in the top 5, but suddenly with 50 laps to go they appear, causing fans (and probably rival drivers) to ask, “where did he come from?”

Quick Pitstops- A fast car is not always enough to get the job done. Your driver has the fastest car all day, dominating the rest of the field when a caution comes out with 30 laps left. After a slow pit stop, the car comes out third or fourth and just can’t handle the same in traffic. Even worse, the crew makes a mistake like missing a lugnut or letting a tire roll outside the pit box. Suddenly a top five car is relegated to a top ten car or worse.

On the flipside, a team has a good car, but just can’t pass the leader on the track. Beating the leader out of the pits is a way to get that track position and possibly a win.

Quick Thinking- If a team doesn’t have the track position, and they don’t have a fast enough car to power to the front, sometimes it falls to the crew chief to take a calculated risk. If everyone pits with 20 laps left, a car can take two tires or stay out on the track to gain a prime spot for the restart. Or during green flag pit stops, maybe the team comes in early to enjoy more laps on fresh tires.

When rain threatens, teams are more apt to gamble on track position. Look at last year’s June Pocono race. Jeff Gordon and Casey Mears had decent cars, but staying on the same pit cycles as everyone else wasn’t going to improve their positions beyond mid-pack. They staggered their pit stops and Gordon won the race and Mears scored an unlikely top five.

Why Do We Care?

In order to see measure who was in position to win races, I looked at the laps led in the final 15% of a race. I chose 15% because at the majority of tracks, this is larger than the fuel window and so at least one pit stop would fall in the final 15% of these races (this might have to be adjusted for short tracks). In 2007 the #48, #24 and #20 were the top three cars in laps led in the final 15% of races. Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon won a combined 16 races and each scored victories through the different methods. In some races they were simply the strongest cars that would not be denied no matter the circumstances. Other races saw the two cars use pit strategy to get out front or simply be in position to capitalize on others’ mistakes. Contrast that with Dale Earnhardt Jr. He led 433 laps over 17 races in 2007 but only led 1 lap in the final 15% of any race. Whether it was engine failure, crashes, or simply losing the handling on the car, Earnhardt wasn’t around at the end of races last year and as a result went winless. Here is the top ten drivers with the most laps led in the final 15% of races for 2007.

[A huge thanks to Mike Forde at NASCAR statistical services for the data]

My theory is that while it doesn’t always pay off, the teams that consistently put themselves within striking distance of the lead, or better yet lead laps at the critical point in races will win more races over a season. Later this week I will look at the Close and Late stats for 2008 and who is ready to break through.

I realize this is something new, and a fairly long-winded explanation, but I would love some feedback on this. Is this valuable information or just nonsense? Do certain drivers peak at the end of races, while others lead a lot of hollow laps? Is 15% the right number to measure? Any feedback is appreciated. Look for part II on Friday.

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?

It feels like the Cup boys were just at Daytona, but eight races later the year is one fourth over. I’ve already discussed a few things we’ve learned so far, but it’s time to check out a few teams and drivers and hand out some grades for the quarter. It’s not a final grade (NASCAR is on semesters, right?), but more of a progress report.

These grades aren’t based strictly on performance, but more on preseason expectations. So a car or team expected to run in the thirties that is running in the teens or twenties is a bigger deal than Carl Edwards or Kyle Busch running well. It’s not a surprise that those two are winning races.

Hot dogs, paperclips and grandfather clocks. In a word association game, most people would be clueless about the relationship. For a NASCAR fan, the response would be an emphatic ‘Martinsville’. The famous (infamous?) hot dogs, the tight paperclip-shaped track and the unique grandfather clock trophy, a race at Martinsville serves plenty of character to the NASCAR crowed.

The first Martinsville race took place in 1949 when the place was still a dirt track. Red Byron beat 14 other drivers to win. Byron and his Toyota Camry Oldsmobile beat second place Lee Petty by 3 laps. The purse was $3,800 which might cover the cost of gas today.

Martinsville might be the slowest track on the Cup circuit but it packs a lot of excitement. Maybe ISC should use that as a selling point. “Catch all the action at NASCAR’s slowest track!” It’s not quite as sexy as Atlanta touting the fastest track or Darlington being the track too tough to tame, but a claim is a claim, right? Slow isn’t a trait that marketers love, but in one sense it is a benefit. Slower speeds bring better racing. It’s a theory several people believe would translate to speedways too.

Numbers and Notes

• If Lowes Motorspeedway is Jimmie Johnson’s house, then Martinsville is like his vacation cabin in the woods. He has four career wins including three straight. In 12 starts he has 11 top tens and eight top 5’s with an average finish of 6.2.

• Dale Earnhardt Jr is the best driver never to win a grandfather clock. He has seven top fives in 16 starts but zero wins. Anyone questioning his driver talent should simply refer to his 2006 run when he finished 4th without the luxury of his front fenders or bumper. He has a great chance to break through this weekend.

• Since 1998, Kurt Busch is the only driver to win races at Bristol and Martinsville in the same season. In 2002 Busch won the spring Bristol race and the fall Martinsville event. While both are short tracks, the actual setups are worlds apart. Bristol relates closer to Dover while Martinsville is more similar to Loudon or Phoenix. That means recent history is against Jeff Burton, but it’s more coincidence than restricting success at both tracks.

• A quick glance at the entry list shows 47 cars entered, meaning only four will miss the race. Michael McDowell will make his Cup debut, stepping into the Robert Parrish (#00) car for Michael Waltrip Racing. Meanwhile teammate David Reutimann slides over to the #44 car. Aric Almirola continues in the #8 car after his strong top ten run at Bristol. Watch out for Ken Schrader in the #49 car. Although the sun is quickly setting on both BAM Racing and Schrader, Kenny can still compete at short tracks and Martinsville is probably his best track at this point.

  Teams needing to qualify on speed this week are #01 Regan Smith, #08 Tony Raines, #10 Patrick Carpentier, #21 Bill Elliott (past champion provisional is in effect), #22 Dave Blaney, #34 John Andretti, #40 Dario Franchitti, #45 Kyle Petty, #49 Ken Schrader, #78 Joe Nemechek and #84 Mike Skinner.

Champs, Chumps and Sleepers Picks

My Pick to Win

Tony Stewart is a very reasonable pick, he always runs well at Martinsville. It would also be easy to take Jimmie Johnson or Jeff Gordon. Instead I’ll take Dale Earnhardt Jr to finally get off the schnide (any idea what a schnide is or how Jr got on it in the first place?) and win his first points race in almost two years.

Is your driver good enough to make the Chase? In January the answer is almost always “yes”. Fans, teams, writers and announcers label almost any driver as a Chase prospect. Obviously only 12 will actually make it, so what does it take? The Chase era is entering its fifth season. It’s time to look at the factors that really apply to a driver with Chase dreams and see if there are some basic requirements for a driver.

The first thing I did was look at the top 12 drivers’ results in each year since 2004. The key was to compare their numbers through the first 26 races, since all we are looking for is how to get in the Chase. Also, because the current rules call for 12 drivers to make the playoffs, I included 12 for each year.

After calculating the average number of wins, top 5’s and top 10’s, I realized that the top drivers are people like Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth that have outstanding seasons and are rarely in danger of missing the Chase. They have much better numbers than the bottom of the list. Realizing they were safely in the Chase, I excluded the top 5 drivers in the Chase to avoid skewing the numbers. This study was about finding how to make the Chase, and the top 5 drivers typically run well every week.

So the next step was taking drivers 6-12 from each of the last 4 years and averaging their numbers. It works out to an average of 1.1 wins, 6.2 top 5’s and 11.8 top 10’s. That’s all it takes to make the Chase. Simple right? Not quite.

There are two ingredients that go into the Chase recipe. The obvious one is getting as many good finishes as possible, but it’s also key to minimize bad finishes. 12 top 10’s through 26 races is nice, but the other 14 races count too. Minimizing DNF’s and maximizing the bad runs are just as important. Think about this: A top 5 finish is worth about 150 points (depending on laps led) while a DNF resulting in a bottom five finish is 50 points or less.

The bottom half of the Chasers averaged 123.7 points per race, which rounds out to finishing 13th in every race. Obviously running 13th every week won’t happen, but if the highs smooth out the lows, then it can lead to a successful season. One extreme example of smoothing out the lows was Jeremy Mayfield’s 2005 campaign. Mayfield only had 7 top tens in 2005, but countered mediocre equipment by avoiding trouble. He had one DNF and only four races worse than 20th. While the Dodge teams struggled with the new Charger, Mayfield made the most of the situation. Meanwhile Jeff Gordon won 3 races with 5 top 5’s, but he also had 9 sub-30 finishes. Mayfield made the Chase while Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr (8 sub-30’s) both missed the Chase. With the CoT and its unknown personality, the Mayfield approach could come in to play this year. Some teams simply won’t be able to run up front, but will have to adjust their aim and avoid trouble to rack up points.

One more thing to note. It’s not necessary to win a race, but it sure helps. Only 6 drivers have made the Chase without a win. Four of those winless drivers did however win a race during the Chase. That shows again how important it is to run up front.

So, returning to the original question. Can your favorite driver make the Chase? You need to ask a few more questions before deciding if a driver is Chaseworthy. Can this driver win a race? Does he run up front enough to score 6 top 5’s? Does he have enough strong tracks to bank on a top ten finish 50% of the time? Does he avoid trouble enough to finish races on the lead lap? Now see how many “yes” answers a driver returns.

Jamie McMurray
0 wins, 3 top 5’s, 7 top 10’s, 9 top 15’s
Avg start: 25.3 Avg finish 23.6
Points Rank: 25th Driver Rating: 67.4
#26 Crown Royal/Irwin Ford Crew Chief: Larry Carter

Race fans with any level of interest know about Jamie McMurray’s story in 2006. First the obvious. He moved to Roush in highly publicized move from Ganassi in 2005. It was a case of a talented driver in search of better equipment. It made sense, except that’s not how it played out. He had his worst season in Cup. He endured three crew chiefs, 7 DNF’s and had fewer top fifteens (9) than his top ten total in any of his first seasons. And he didn’t get any closer to winning his first race since 2002. He did have some nice runs, but fell well short of expectations.

The most vivid picture of McMurray’s struggle was of him sitting dejectedly in his garage stall during the Texas race. The handling on the car was so bad he couldn’t drive it. No mechanical issues or damage from a wreck, just a terrible car and McMurray and crew having no answer. Jack Roush made a crew chief change the next week, moving Bob Osborne from Carl Edwards’ car to the #26 of McMurray.

Aside from the Texas letdown, McMurray hadn’t run terribly in the first seven races. A late crash ruined a top ten at Daytona, and he finished 7th at California and 9th at Martinsville. The change initially got results. McMurray finished 14th at Phoenix, 5th at Talladega, 8th at Lowes and 2nd at Dover. He led 95 laps at Dover before teammate Matt Kenseth passed him late for the win. McMurray led a mere 37 total laps in 2005.

McMurray couldn’t sustain the success, recording only two top tens the rest of the year. At the start of the season McMurray apparently wasn’t comfortable in the same setups as his teammates. As the year progressed, it’s hard to say whether it was McMurray struggling or Roush Racing as a whole. Roush’s intermediate program, their bread and butter the past few years, struggled in the second half of the year, especially during the Chase.

Looking back on the season, when McMurray wasn’t struggling, his luck abandoned him. Crashes at Daytona, Bristol, Talladega and Phoenix spoiled good runs. He sat on the outside pole at Sonoma only to spin twice on the first lap. A rock at Darlington knocked his oil pump belt loose, ruining the engine. There is nothing to do but throw your hands up.

Another confounding statistic is McMurray’s qualifying on 2006. He had 16 starts of 30th or worse and eight starts worse than 40th. Usually qualifying doesn’t mean a lot, especially in relation to finishes. It still illustrates the complete struggle McMurray endured. A car from a top team shouldn’t be consistently outran by single-car, under-funded field-fillers. The other four Roush cars all started an average 19.3 or better.

The question that dogs McMurray is “when will he win another race?” It’s not to Jeff Burton lengths yet, but announcers constantly remind people that he hasn’t won since he subbed for Sterling Marlin in 2002. Despite many critics, McMurray is a very good driver that excels at any type of track. Phoenix is the only track for McMurray without a top ten, although he has a Busch win in 2004. He is equally capable at restrictor plate tracks, short tracks or road courses. Three of his top 10’s were at plate tracks. He is also great at California (5 top 10’s in 7 races), Martinsville, and Charlotte. When he resumes running up front he has a chance to win practically anywhere.

Now it’s up to Roush to get McMurray back the front. The team may have slipped below Gibbs, and Hendrick, but Roush is still one of the best organizations at the Cup level. Larry Carter was recently hired as crew chief. He previously worked with Rusty Wallace at Penske and for Michael Waltrip Racing this past year. With the introduction of coil-bound spring packages, certain drivers weren’t as comfortable. A second year with Roush should help McMurray find a setup that suits him.

In his first three seasons McMurray finished 13th, 11th, and 21th. He barely missed the Chase in 2004 and 2005. He didn’t forget how to drive in one season filled with poor races, tough crashes and strange luck. The season also wasn’t as bad as the results show. Switching teams, even a perceived upgrade, is not simply A+B=C. McMurray should return to the top 15 in points and consistently running in the top ten. A win wouldn’t be a total shock, especially at California if Roush can regain their mojo at 1.5 and 2 mile tracks.