NASCAR - The Modern Era 1975-2014 Rescored using F1 points

Well, I have finally completed my little project. As many of you know I had become a little intrigued by the way the FIA awards points to the competitors in the different series they sanction, to include Formula 1. When they announced that they were going from the 10 point win system to the 25 point win system I started the thread you are all familiar with, the current season scored using FIA points. Seeing how the season was playing out, I decided to go back and try a little "project". I decided to go back and examine the entire Latford points era which started in 1975, and continues to the current day, with that gimmicky Chase tacked on.

So much for a little project.

I started it the weekend of the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona (ya know the big win by Harvick :p : ) and FINALLY finished it this past weekend.

It entailed scoring, by hand, 1140 races from the 1975 season opening Winston Western 500 at Riverside International Raceway in California and ending with the 2010 Air Guard 400 at Richmond International Raceway this past weekend. Luckily I had already perfected the craft by scoring all 3 series races this year and it is made easier by only having to score the top ten in each race.

So, what did I find out?

Well, I found out that Jimmie Johnson is still a 4 time Champion, just not a 4 in a row-er, while Jeff Gordon, who is a 5 Timer, is.

I did what the competition was unable to do. I cost Dale Sr two of his seven championships (much to my chagrin).

I wiped out the closest "true" points battle in Nascar history, at the same time avoiding the farce that gave us the chase to start with.

I have stripped the championship from the most undeserving driver ever, and have given the championships to drivers who showed championship form over an entire season, without penalizing too harshly an occasional bad finish.

Over the course of 35 seasons from 1975-2009 the championship has only changed 10 times using this system, so its not wholesale throwing the baby out with the bath water, and even in the chase years since 2004 it has only produced 2 changes so yes Jimmie really has been whippin tail the last several years.

I will start a new thread for each season to facilitate comments for that season and will only intro a few of them at a time so as to not flood the front page.

It was a lot of fun to do, and I learned some Nascar history along the way. I have also left 1949-1974 alone, and compiled a "champions list" that merges my findings into the previous history, which I will post after I post the 2009 season.

And, as always, It was just for fun, so please don't start a fight over it :D

I forgot to add my thanks to my brother damg75 for putting up with the endless flood of emails and correcting any mistakes I may have made in my tabulation. He is after all, the forums original stat-man.

Between losing another hard drive and being out of work sick for the past week it seems that many things are conspiring to keep me from finishing this. I return to work tomorrow morning and will be bringing my old hard drive to one of my IT guys at work and he is going to make an attempt at data recovery for me. Why I didn't back this up on my external hard drive I have no idea. Luckily I did almost everything else up to 2 weeks before, so I have almost everything back already. Just not this series, and the previous two weeks of everything else.

Keeping my fingers crossed........

Well, I have succesfully recovered all my data, so I will be posting the rest of the threads when I have time. After discussing things with my brother, we will be scoring the entire Truck and Nationwide Series history during the off season, and possibly even Cup from 1949-1974, just for grins (since we will be jonesin' for some racin by the time the banquet comes around)....

Well, I never did get the other stuff done that I wanted to do, and the season is right around the corner..... BUT I feel like I owe it to alexamateo to at least get the threads up for the rest of the cup seasons between 1985 and 2009... I will post those sometime next week after I get all the pickem's stuff set up. If any of you would like to come in and work for me, I may even get the stuff up sooner, LOL....

Oh don't worry about me if it's too much trouble. I could figure it myself if I wanted to, but if you do the work, then I don't have to. :p Anyway, I do find it interesting, and I do appreciate it regardless, one way or the other.

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Originally Posted by slorydn1

So, what did I find out?

I have stripped the championship from the most undeserving driver ever,

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Having obviously missed something, this sort of thing does tend to pique one's curiosity....

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Originally Posted by Don Capps

Having obviously missed something, this sort of thing does tend to pique one's curiosity....

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Nope, you haven't missed anything, yet. I got very busy at work and havent been posting the yearly threads, yet. I only made as far as 1984 so far, but I have all the data through last year. And yeah, based on a single season long performance, one driver has won a Championship in the last 35 seasons who did not deserve it at all, and no, it's not Jimmie Johnson. I will give you a hint, it did occur during the 2000-2009 time frame. Hopefully by sometime late next week I'll have them all up, and if you search back just a page or 2 on this forum you'll find 1975-1984.

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Originally Posted by Alexamateo

Oh don't worry about me if it's too much trouble. I could figure it myself if I wanted to, but if you do the work, then I don't have to. :p Anyway, I do find it interesting, and I do appreciate it regardless, one way or the other.

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Nah it's not too much trouble. I just bit off a little more than I can chew, LOL. I do have all the season's done so I'll get it all up, eventually. I have just had to swallow my pride for a while and not mess with the Ntionwide or Truck series for a while.

Just a personal observation: I find that other than for some personal gratification for reasons beyond my comprehension, as well as lots of time on one's hands, as to the point of doing something of this nature. However, this seems to be not uncommon among those following the various NASCAR series. Given that there is still much to be done regarding the history of both stock car racing and NASCAR, both being something of a disaster for the most part, any time spent delving into the past could probably be used to kick over some of the rocks that litter the landscape and see what is under them.

An example of a lot of trees that died in vain -- which is, alas, the fate of virtually every tree used in the production of a book on stock cars or NASCAR -- is the book by Richard Sowers, The Complete Statistical History of Stock-Car Racing (David Bull, 2000). The book could have been a very worthy addition to the extremely thin literature relating to the issues regarding the Grand National division. Instead, it is a book that allows the author to indulge in some statical fantasies that are of little to no use to the historian. That Sowers claims to have a "complete" set of the results of the Grand National division only increases one's frustrations with the book.

Of course, his take on the history, the early days of stock car racing, generally repeats the usual mythology and what has been shaped to be that past by NASCAR and others.