Am I the only one bored with the #54 in NWS? Not the #22, but the #54's so far ahead it's dull, sort of like Vettel in an F3 or GP2 race in a Red Bull.
Also NASCAR needs cars that can actually pass on tracks lie Charlotte.
I pretty much just watch the trucks and Cup races at this point. Nationwide was fairly boring for most of the year. Probably would have paid more attention of Regan Smith had stayed in the running, but once he was out it just felt like Dillon was destined to win it one way or the other.
Don't know if its the shorter races or what but the trucks put on an entertaining show more often than the other two series it seems.
Kyle won 5 out of 22 Truck races this year though. They IMO put on the best show out of all of the three main series. N'Wide? Different story. Zzzzzzzzz
However, go back to 95-97, those three years were three of the best. Maybe it was the unknown (at the time) tech, maye it was the right place, right time drivers, but it was great racing.
I still believe cup drivers shouldnt be able to run a full schedule for a car. It ruins the point of the nationwide series. I mean if Joey and Brad run a car its taking away from someone who could run that car. Same with Kyle in the 54
I wish more of the older Cup guys would "retire" to the truck series when their options start running out for Cup. Would be an interesting dynamic between the vets and the kids coming up and I'm sure they could teach them a thing or two, plus you'd still get to watch some of your favorite drivers fairly often throughout the season. Didn't Labonte say he wasn't opposed to racing a truck? Hope he finds a ride down there.
I'm getting pretty fed up with the "debris" cautions when there's no evident debris anywhere. Have been for a while. At Phoenix somebody went close to the wall and NASCAR threw a yellow flag.
I've been slowly losing attraction towards all three series', but the Cup series especially. That's not to say I don't like the racing, but the yellows for no good reason never cease to anger me and turn me away from the series'.
It's funny because, like you said, if someone runs close to the wall early in the race its a caution, but someone can spin with 20 to go and and it isn't a caution (happened at Homestead).
I like Oval racing it is so very intense to the point where you hope for a caution sometimes just for a break.
I am generally a nice enough person (very arguable) but when I see people wrecking on an oval race I wet my pants with joy at their misfortune!
When the tyres start going off and your drifting out to the wall with your eyes closed and your balls crossed then nothing beats it.
Problem is I suck at oval racing even worse than I do at road racing.
iRacing I am talking about here as I've only ever tried Nascar 2003 for a brief while.
On another topic I bought that Nascar 2003 packaged disk at a friggin rediculous price a couple of years ago from ebay. One eay I will sell it or swap it for a Rampant Rabbit or something.
Anyway conclusion is that there are too many arseholes that are more of an arsehole even than me on iRacing for me to take it seriously. And I am one serious **** by the way!
Rampant rabbit is taken very seriously!
Talking of Rampant Rabbits I still have a mad fascination of Becky, she is beautiful! She is a doll although expect she likes it a bit rough. This unfortunatley for me as I am the submissive type.
Wrapping up the 2013 season with some statistical analysis and compairing it to last year. NASCARnomics.com & racing-reference.info provides some of the the information.
Lead Changes: '12 - 681 | '13 - 700
Lead Changes without plate races: '12 - 556 | '13 - 572
Cautions: '12 - 216 | '13 - 287
Cautions without plate races: '12 - 190 | '13 - 267
LC/Cautions: '12 - 3.153 | '13 - 2.44
LC/Cautions without plate races: '12 - 2.926 | '13 - 2.14
Debris Cautions per race: '12 - 1.6 | '13 - 2.0
Incident Cautions per race (wrecks & spins): '12 - 3.7 | '13 - 4.8
Mechinical Cautions per race: '12 - 0.6 | '13 - 1
Total LC/Debris Cautions per race: '12 - 425.6 | '13 - 350
Total LC/Debris Cautions per race without plate races: '12 - 347.5 | '13 - 286
Of these statistics I find the last most representative of the quality of the racing. Cautions cause lead changes, so the LC per caution count is also important. I don't like including plate track statistics in my statistics as you may have noticed
Are there stats somewhere for green flag passes for the whole year? Lead changes don't necessarily mean more passing/better racing throughout the field.
Yes, there are, and a I agree, but once again these statistics would need be be diluted as I have done once again.
I think that the new car probably did produce better racing in the middle and the back of the field, but it failed to produce great racing at the front due to the aero-issues. This was especially true on flat tracks and wide tracks I thought.
I'll look deeper into loop data statistics here soon, but until then I'll reference my favorite race, the Southern 500, compaired 2013 to 2012. I thought this year's Southern 500 was the worst I've ever seen, but let's see how the number stack up
Total Green Flag Passes 2012 = 2,525
Total Green Flag Passes 2013 = 2,370
2012 Yellows / Debris Yellows = 5 / 3
2013 Yellows / Debris Yellows = 8 / 1
Green flag passes per run 2012 = 505
Green flag passes per run 2013 = 296.25
(Why bother with green flag passes per debris caution 2012 has way less)
The most important Statistic? The total passes of the top 10 drivers in terms of average running position. None of these drivers DNF'ed in these events.
2012 Total green flag passes of the 10 lowest (best) average running position drivers = 583
2013 Total green flag passes of the 10 lowest (best) average running position drivers = 402
I think that this says a lot about the new car and proves my point. I haven't looked at other races yet, but I'm sure that they show the same type of things. I don't have time to look at the entire season though.
Compair this to the first Southern 500 to feature loop statistics (2005)
2005 Total Passes (Generation 4) = 1672
2005 Cautions = 12 | 3 for debris 2005 Total green flag passes of the 10 lowest (best) average running position drivers = 370
Note: Kahne and Newman had 19 & 17 passes respectively and were 2 of the 10 drivers with the best average running position. Harvick also was included with a total of 67. Outliers in 2012 were 33, 39 & 93. Outliers in 2013 were 22, 32, & 80.
2006 Total green flag passes of the 10 lowest (best) average running position drivers = 276 2010 Total green flag passes of the 10 lowest (best) average running position drivers = 403
Maybe we have just been spoiled by the CoT (Gen 5) with regards to front runners swapping positions, but then again, this is just Darlington