Have top fives and tens become irrelevant?

aunty dive said:
He’s not stupid.

He and his peers realize that it isn’t possible to convince skeptical fans that they’re actually racers. You’re supposed to know what that word means.

It seems rather odd that 3 of them have won twice and Hamlin has three wins. What’s up with that? Why weren’t they all “cruising ... waiting for the chase to start?”
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Maybe if you would stop and try to take in what I'm saying you would understand. First off, I SPECIFICALLY SAID that the I don't think it necessarily affects how the teams approach it, I'm talking about what it looks like from a fan's perspective. I NEVER said there wasn't value in running up towards the front so you are in a position to win, I said if you DON'T win, there isn't a hell of a lot of practical difference between 2nd and 11th, and as a FAN, it's hard to get geeked up about finishes that don't seem to mean very much. This is a fan perspective thing, not a racer perspective thing. Your line of reasoning seems to ONLY take into account the racer side of the equation. I try to look at it from a racer side as well as a fan side. What pleases one doesn't necessarily please the other.
 
Formerjackman said:
Maybe if you would stop and try to take in what I'm saying you would understand. First off, I SPECIFICALLY SAID that the I don't think it necessarily affects how the teams approach it, I'm talking about what it looks like from a fan's perspective. I NEVER said there wasn't value in running up towards the front so you are in a position to win, I said if you DON'T win, there isn't a hell of a lot of practical difference between 2nd and 11th, and as a FAN, it's hard to get geeked up about finishes that don't seem to mean very much. This is a fan perspective thing, not a racer perspective thing. Your line of reasoning seems to ONLY take into account the racer side of the equation. I try to look at it from a racer side as well as a fan side. What pleases one doesn't necessarily please the other.
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Don't flatter yourself. I understand. Repeating yourself is unlikely to make me "stop and try to take in what you're saying".

Supposedly, you were part of a race team. A racer. In my world, you're expected to get it. As a fan, your perspective is badly flawed. Fans that somehow perceive their heroes to be stroking it in this or that event because "already made the chase" have no idea what's going on. It seems to me their time would be better spent doing something else.

All JMO.
 
10-4 said:
....except probably Jimmie Johnson in 2016. That was the luckiest championship of the stage racing era.

Edited - just checked and 2016 was the last year before stage racing o_O
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Yes, but it's overlooked though because he was the best car that playoffs. Won 3 races, and dominated like half of them and was even taking it to Harvick at Phoenix before an issue.

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Want to share an interesting statistic that people here, for whatever reason, have written off.

From 2000-2013, two drivers had 26+ top 10s in a single season. Gordon had 30 in 2007, Edwards 27 in 2008, and 26 in 2011. 3 seasons of 26+ top 10s.

Since the gen 6 car, 2014-2019, it's happened every single year. Multiple drivers had 26+ in one or two of the seasons. So, since the gen 6 car debuted, we have more than doubled the amount of high end top seasons in half the time. Each year, someone (sometimes two drivers) put up over 26 top 10 finishes these last 5 years. Before that, it was happening every 4 or so years.


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I think stage points to a degree have overtaken the value of getting a top *5 only finish. I would think the Monday morning meetings are happiest first with the win, then the final points total that includes the stage points.

*Yes there is a lot of overlap with stage points and finishing position but there can still be some deviations. Aside from the winner the driver leaving with the most points could be the driver that won the first two stages or finished them very well. But he still may have had a late race problem that knocked him out the final top 10 etc...

A most extreme example would be comparing it to the 35 total points a driver would earn with a 2nd place overall finish while earning no stage points.
That driver could still leave with less points than a driver who won both stages but only finished 20th overall.
In this example that driver would recieve 17 points for the final 20th place finish plus the 20 stage points for a total of 37 points.
He also would recieve two playoff bonus points that are added to the playoff reset. The winner would recieve 5 bonus points while the 2nd place driver in this hypothesis leaves with no bonus points.

Another example would be the dramatic points difference a race winner would get for also winning both stages.
He would get 60 points total and 7 bonus points for the playoff resets.

Sorry for all the verbiage and it should noted again that these are extreme examples. The chances of it being this radical are very slim.
Still the same the reward for finishing with a top 5 only and no stage is not as strong as it used to be.
I dont think nascar fans asked for the chase or playoff eliminations etc. But I think there was a previous consensus that the difference and reward for finishing 2nd and winning were not enough. People wanted to see the winner get more credit or more of points awarded than it was in the previous case, and Nascar has delivered on that end.
 
Formerjackman said:
Something about racing has been bothering me lately and last night I was finally able to put my finger on it. As I was watching Chase Elliott score a fine second place finish, I realized that unlike in the past, I just didn't care very much. With all the emphasis on wins and stage points, who CARES how many top fives you have? I noticed too that the official NASCAR standings chart doesn't even LIST top fives and tens any longer. In the past, obviously you wanted your guy to win the race, but you KNEW that championships were built on all of those other good finishes, and now, especially if you have a win in the bag, do they really matter all ALL? In times past, Chase's finish would have had me smiling all week. Now I just sort of shrug my shoulders and say "OK, that was nice' and shut off the TV and wait for next week's race. It just seems like all I'm doing now is passing time until the playoffs start, and I feel like I'm getting cheated out of much of the enjoyment I used to draw from the weekly battles. Thoughts, opinions?
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Yeah, the “sport” has been going in the wrong direction for quite some time. I don’t care about stages, or stage points.
I don’t like the Cup package. Xfin and Trucks put on a much better race in terms of passing and competition.
I don’t like playoffs, I don’t watch playoff races and I don’t really care who wins at the end of the season anymore. For me the season ends on the race before the playoffs.
Before COVID-19, I used to go out of my way to watch qualifying and practice, now I don’t care anymore.
I’ll watch the race if I haven’t got anything else to do.
 
Formerjackman said:
Something about racing has been bothering me lately and last night I was finally able to put my finger on it. As I was watching Chase Elliott score a fine second place finish, I realized that unlike in the past, I just didn't care very much. With all the emphasis on wins and stage points, who CARES how many top fives you have? I noticed too that the official NASCAR standings chart doesn't even LIST top fives and tens any longer. In the past, obviously you wanted your guy to win the race, but you KNEW that championships were built on all of those other good finishes, and now, especially if you have a win in the bag, do they really matter all ALL? In times past, Chase's finish would have had me smiling all week. Now I just sort of shrug my shoulders and say "OK, that was nice' and shut off the TV and wait for next week's race. It just seems like all I'm doing now is passing time until the playoffs start, and I feel like I'm getting cheated out of much of the enjoyment I used to draw from the weekly battles. Thoughts, opinions?
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I dont even know what this means.
 
gnomesayin said:
Since the day the stage points system was announced, I've objected to the reality that it is more valuable to run 3rd for the first half of the race and finish 15th (38 points) than to run 15th for the first half of the race and finish 3rd (34 points). Never in the history of motorsports...

Top fives and top tens have never had any official meaning, but they were rewarded via the points system. I would welcome a change that restored the practical importance of race finishes over early race performance.
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Byron took home 37 points from Homestead. He finished P9.

Bell took home 29 points from Homestead. He finished P8.

Nonsense.
 
aunty dive said:
Don't flatter yourself. I understand. Repeating yourself is unlikely to make me "stop and try to take in what you're saying".

Supposedly, you were part of a race team. A racer. In my world, you're expected to get it. As a fan, your perspective is badly flawed. Fans that somehow perceive their heroes to be stroking it in this or that event because "already made the chase" have no idea what's going on. It seems to me their time would be better spent doing something else.

All JMO.
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Proof that you really DON'T understand what I'm saying. I'll try this ONE MORE TIME, and then I'm done. At NO POINT did I accuse anyone of stroking or the teams of approaching the race any differently. Greg seems to understand EXACTLY what I'm saying. The win and you're basically in scenario and the stage points have taken much of the importance of a top 5 finishes away. Simple question; Would you rather finish 2nd with no stage points, or win both stages and finish 11th? I don't think that is a hard concept to grasp. That may not change the way competitors look at the race, but as a fan it certainly does for me. If I were working on the car that finished second, that would be important to me because it's a reflection of MY work. As a FAN, the ONLY THING that really matters to me outside of a win is a result's relative contribution to winning a championship. That contribution is somewhat less than it once was in my opinion, and I think the statistics overall will illustrate that . I'm not suggesting that ANYONE ELSE has to see it the way I do, only that that is the way I'm seeing it and I wondered if any others felt the same way. It would appear that at least a few other people here do to. If you don't, that's perfectly fine, I don't really care.
 
StandOnIt said:
Kinda inconclusive? I'll post a couple more and maybe a better pattern will emerge

2016
View attachment 47361
2015
View attachment 47362
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I wouldn't call it inconclusive. It looks to me like the better teams have become even more dominant knocking out those T5's and 10's in the short "stage era". I think top 5's and 10's are important. Those are the teams getting results from their work. For the most part they show the trend of who you can safely bet on to be the the last 4 standing.
 
jaqua19 said:
Want to share an interesting statistic that people here, for whatever reason, have written off.

From 2000-2013, two drivers had 26+ top 10s in a single season. Gordon had 30 in 2007, Edwards 27 in 2008, and 26 in 2011. 3 seasons of 26+ top 10s.

Since the gen 6 car, 2014-2019, it's happened every single year. Multiple drivers had 26+ in one or two of the seasons. So, since the gen 6 car debuted, we have more than doubled the amount of high end top seasons in half the time. Each year, someone (sometimes two drivers) put up over 26 top 10 finishes these last 5 years. Before that, it was happening every 4 or so years.


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Why do you think that is?
 
I wonder if any current driver contracts incentivize top 5 and 10 finishes?
 
JJ_14 said:
I disagree that they're irrelevant. Getting a top 5 still has to feel good to these drivers.
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Once again, this is NOT about drivers and teams. This is about fans perception of them. Since the point of this topic seems to have sailed on by most, perhaps I should have asked THIS question. Are teams championship contenders BECAUSE of top five finishes, or are do they have top five finishes because they are championship level teams? My contention is that if you manage to win the right three races, that's the only three top 5's you would need all year.
 
Formerjackman said:
Once again, this is NOT about drivers and teams. This is about fans perception of them. Since the point of this topic seems to have sailed on by most, perhaps I should have asked THIS question. Are teams championship contenders BECAUSE of top five finishes, or are do they have top five finishes because they are championship level teams? My contention is that if you manage to win the right three races, that's the only three top 5's you would need all year.
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What kind of circular logic is this? You just said this isnt about the drivers and teams but you pose a question about the drivers and teams.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
The current points system has made me not care at all about anything but who wins. Unless a mid-tier driver has a top-10 run.
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You dont care about How they got the win? Why they got the win, who they had to beat to get the win? In other words, you dont care about the entire race?
 
Spotter22 said:
You dont care about How they got the win? Why they got the win, who they had to beat to get the win? In other words, you dont care about the entire race?
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Way to put words in my mouth.

I watch for the race, not the Chase, er, playoffs. I do not give a damn at all about points anymore.

I will say that the playoffs have made the final 10 races more entertaining. But I only watch for just that, the entertainment. I don't care about the points.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
Way to put words in my mouth
I watch for the race, not the Chase, er, playoffs. I do not give a damn at all about points anymore.

I will say that the playoffs have made the final 10 races more entertaining. But I only watch for just that, the entertainment. I don't care about the points.
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Andy, I asked you a question, I didnt put words in your mouth. I really never gave a damn about points either, like my buddy Charles Powell III said, " points go in the distributor"
 
Formerjackman said:
Once again, this is NOT about drivers and teams. This is about fans perception of them. Since the point of this topic seems to have sailed on by most, perhaps I should have asked THIS question. Are teams championship contenders BECAUSE of top five finishes, or are do they have top five finishes because they are championship level teams? My contention is that if you manage to win the right three races, that's the only three top 5's you would need all year.
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Championship level teams scoop up the most top 5's and 10's. They do matter. If a team ain't clicking em off how in the world could they be expected to pull a Babe Ruth and win the right 3 races? They're just not serious contenders if they're not pulling in top finishes.
 
10-4 said:
Championship level teams scoop up the most top 5's and 10's. They do matter. If a team ain't clicking em off how in the world could they be expected to pull a Babe Ruth and win the right 3 races? They're just not serious contenders if they're not pulling in top finishes.
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I'm pretty sure this one will get jacked, but the way it is set up going into the playoffs, it hardly ever happens that a team moves into the second round who comes in with 1 win and the majority of top 10's with a small smattering of top 5's. They are usually dog meat. The guys with many top 5's have enough playoff points to move on even if they have a crappy race. Remember they reset the points, but they get to keep their playoff points and some of them will have so many they could wreck out on the first lap and their playoff points will cover it. It helps to understand the points even if ya don't like it instead of arguing a nothing point. Or in the case trying to nail down a crawfisher who keeps changing the topic while insisting they aren't.
 
Reading through this, I’ll say that of course top 5’s and top 10’s matter, these fellas are racing! I would think my favorite driver even if they don’t have a car good enough to win are still digging deep on that track hustling it to try to get the best finish as possible...just trying to beat the guy and team beside you. Pretty sure you need a certain level of performance to get into the playoffs and then keep up or exceed that performance to get a invite to the championship race in Phoenix. I don’t know if it’s as easy as riding around after that 1 win to get you in and then flipping a switch when the schedule hits “Playoff” time, seems to me these guys hustle it all year. Now I did say that previously that I preferred the way top 5’s and top 10’s had more importance in determining a champion... it seemed in the old days, don’t know if that’s true but it’s the way I perceived it, there were no playoffs and safety net of playoff points and a win an Your in so of course my thinking would be skewed. But to say guys ride around now and don’t care until all the playoffs, I don’t buy that line of thinking.
 
Formerjackman said:
Once again, this is NOT about drivers and teams. This is about fans perception of them. Since the point of this topic seems to have sailed on by most, perhaps I should have asked THIS question. Are teams championship contenders BECAUSE of top five finishes, or are do they have top five finishes because they are championship level teams? My contention is that if you manage to win the right three races, that's the only three top 5's you would need all year.
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If I may, I think the hole in your logic is and this entire thread is that if teams don’t have enough top 5’s and top 10’s in this points format, they likely won’t be participating in the playoffs which means it likely won’t matter which 3 races they win because they will have no shot at a championship. I don’t think a team has a shot at entering the playoffs with no wins, no top 5’s and only top 10’s. That’d be incredible really because they finish 6-16 every week with no hiccups...then they’d somehow go out and win 3 races. I’d have to see it to believe it.
 
Snappy D said:
If I may, I think the hole in your logic is and this entire thread is that if teams don’t have enough top 5’s and top 10’s in this points format, they likely won’t be participating in the playoffs which means it likely won’t matter which 3 races they win because they will have no shot at a championship. I don’t think a team has a shot at entering the playoffs with no wins, no top 5’s and only top 10’s. That’d be incredible really because they finish 6-16 every week with no hiccups...then they’d somehow go out and win 3 races. I’d have to see it to believe it.
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Well, my thinking was that you could win one race in the regular season, then win a race in round three, and then the finale. Granted the stage points have changed the equation somewhat, but Jeff Gordon came tantalizingly close to pulling it off in 2015. It would be pure speculation on how many stage points he could have accumulated under the current system, but he went to Homestead with only five top five's. In 2018, Logano won the title with only 13 top five's. Almirola finished fifth with only FOUR. To put it in perspective, in 2007, Jeff Gordon had THIRTY and STILL LOST the title.
 
Spotter22 said:
Andy, I asked you a question, I didnt put words in your mouth. I really never gave a damn about points either, like my buddy Charles Powell III said, " points go in the distributor"
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I think it's the way you phrase your questions. I was under the same impression as Andy until your second post.

"In other words, you dont care about the entire race?" comes across a lot more aggressively than "Dont you care about the entire race?". The phrase "In other words..." is always going to seem like your putting words in someone else's mouth.

Phrase things how you like. I posted this mostly because I often have trouble telling where you're coming from.
 
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