A Mid-Season Numbers Diversion

Well, we’re halfway through the 2010 NASCAR season and I thought it makes sense to take a hard look at what has transpired, by the numbers.

First off, here are the current Top 20 Chase Standing Drivers:
(thru the July 10th race in Joliet, Illinois)

I wonder how these standings would look if we made just one slight change to the system… Let’s award the drivers one point for every lap they’ve led during the first 19 races of the season:

It surprised me that after adding almost 6,000 points to the standings mix the results really didn’t change that much. The major difference being the larger gap between the top drivers. In the current system 400 points separate first from tenth place while in the revised system (which I believe rewards drivers to a higher level for not sitting on their laurels) the gap between first and tenth grew to over 500 points more to 954. Kasey Kahne would been the recepient of the most benefit from the revised system. Kasey made a leap from 17th to 10th in the Chase while Carl Edwards (with only four, that’s right, count 'em only four lead laps in 19 races!) drops out. The revised point system reshuffled the leading drivers with le creme de le creme rising to the top.

So far 64 drivers have driven a Sprint Cup car this season but only 46 have taken the lead at any one time. Here are the top twenty-five:

Look at all the drivers up there with more laps led than Carl Edwards. There are another 13 (including Boris Said and Mattias Ekstrom, two road course drivers) before you find Uncle Carl with 4…

Kristen, you oughta like those stats!

The problem is NASCAR wants to know how that damned Dodge is doin' it!

And Jon, did you see that Joe Nemechek has actually led two(!) laps!

Along the lines of the start and park folks, here are the top drivers in terms of laps completed per start followed by the drivers who are constantly breaking down (or is it wrecking?)...

Taking the laps led data one step further. Here’s how the teams stack up:

The average laps led per team is really telling...

And then look at laps led by Manufacturer:

---MAKE-------------LAPS LED------#of TEAMS-------AVE./TEAM
1. Dodge ---------------875---------------4 -----------------218.75
2. Chevrolet----------2,919 -------------17------------------171.71
3. Toyota ------------1,453 -------------14------------------103.79
4. Ford----------------554 -------------12------------------46.17

What’s up with Ford? Now I know these people have got great engineers making great equipment for an excellent group of drivers, so what gives? This is way out of line.

________________________________________

How about a look at where the rubber really meets the road – The Money:

(Here are the top drivers in terms of total earnings and then average earnings per start)

Out of these numbers came a surprise. Look at which team is out-performing all others where it counts:

Evidently Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing is gettin' the hits when they need to, when the big money is on the line... Those teams averaging better than $2.5 million (if that $5 million figure is accurate these days) will be running a profitable operation if they continue through the rest of the year as they have the first half.

____________________________________________

In a different look at numbers, here is a rating of the drivers in terms of starting position and finishing position:

(35 Drivers with over 4,000 laps of racing were used)

Here are the top 10 drivers moving through the field toward a good finish in 2010 ---------Drivers moving up took the following numbers off of their starting positions:

1.-----Kevin Harvick -9.737
2.-----Travis Kvapil -9.556
3.-----Kevin Conway -8.222
4.-----Matt Kenseth -7.368
5.-----Robby Gordon -6.706
6.-----David Gilliland -6.125
7.------Carl Edwards -4.947
8.----Bobby Labonte -3.579
9.---------Greg Biffle -3.526
10.----Denny Hamlin -3.368

-------Then there are the drivers moving down. Add the following numbers to their starting positions and that's where they've been finishing:

26.---Marcos Ambrose 2.737
27.---------Joe Logano 3.842
28.------Mark Martin 4.053
29.--Jamie McMurray 4.579
30.-------Kurt Busch 4.842
31.---Sam Hornish Jr. 5.053
32.----Ryan Newman 5.737
33.--Jimmie Johnson 5.789
34.-----Kasey Kahne 6.895
35.-Juan Pablo Montoya 7.053

Looking at these numbers makes me wonder what EGR could be doing money-wise with a driver that moves up, not down (sounds like one of those gold commercials... And it's supposed to!) When's Juan's contract run out?

Finally, Here is how the top drivers have performed in terms of finishes:

Is it going to be more of the same or will someone named Kevin or Kurt of Kyle or Tony or ???? break the spell?

Time will tell...

There will be more number crunching in the future... Hope you have enjoyed this look at what our boys are doing.

I do want to apologize for the quality of those spreadsheets. Someday maybe they'll figure out how to tranfer that kind of work to a blog... For a number cruncher like me it would sure be nice!