What it takes to be a Champion

SpeedPagan

SpeedPagan

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So, I've been looking at some of the Champions of years past, even before The Chase era. It's kind of interesting how having the most wins doesn't always nab you the Championship, even under many of the various old points system in the Winston Cup. The one that stands out is in 1996 where Gordon had the most wins, but Terry Labonte won the Championship with 2 wins. Then, you have points battle like in 2011 where Carl Edwards was the most consistent, but Tony Stewart had the most wins. Of course there was also the last pre-Chase race where Matt Kenseth won the Championship with just 1 win.

So, honestly, this lead me to the conclusion that you can't just win the Championship on wins alone, you have to get wins and be a consistent front runner.

Thoughts?
 
SpeedPagan said:
So, I've been looking at some of the Champions of years past, even before The Chase era. It's kind of interesting how having the most wins doesn't always nab you the Championship, even under many of the various old points system in the Winston Cup. The one that stands out is in 1996 where Gordon had the most wins, but Terry Labonte won the Championship with 2 wins. Then, you have points battle like in 2011 where Carl Edwards was the most consistent, but Tony Stewart had the most wins. Of course there was also the last pre-Chase race where Matt Kenseth won the Championship with just 1 win.

So, honestly, this lead me to the conclusion that you can't just win the Championship on wins alone, you have to get wins and be a consistent front runner.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...


Jeff Gordon was the best, most dominate driver in 1996. He and Terry both tied for Top 5s and Top 10s, however Terry won the Championship with 2 wins to Gordon's 13. So I am waiting for Gordon fans to take that Championship away from Terry.
 
Jeffrey00 said:
Jeff Gordon was the best, most dominate driver in 1996. He and Terry both tied for Top 5s and Top 10s, however Terry won the Championship with 2 wins to Gordon's 13. So I am waiting for Gordon fans to take that Championship away from Terry.
Click to expand...

Yea, but how many poor finishes did Gordon have in 1996 compared to Terry's?
 
Jeffrey00 said:
Jeff Gordon was the best, most dominate driver in 1996. He and Terry both tied for Top 5s and Top 10s, however Terry won the Championship with 2 wins to Gordon's 13. So I am waiting for Gordon fans to take that Championship away from Terry.
Click to expand...
Gordon would've won the championship using the the scale they used from 2004-2006 that gave 180 rather than 175 points to the winner. He would've won by even more using the one from 2007-2010 that awarded 185 points to the winner.

Previous systems were not without flaws, but that goes to show you can crown the best driver over the course of the season champion if you adequately weight finishing well.
 
Well like I said, what this tells me is that to be a NASCAR Winston/Nextel/Sprint Cup Champion, you need to not only have wins, but you also need to be a consistent front runner.
 
SpeedPagan said:
So, I've been looking at some of the Champions of years past, even before The Chase era. It's kind of interesting how having the most wins doesn't always nab you the Championship, even under many of the various old points system in the Winston Cup. The one that stands out is in 1996 where Gordon had the most wins, but Terry Labonte won the Championship with 2 wins. Then, you have points battle like in 2011 where Carl Edwards was the most consistent, but Tony Stewart had the most wins. Of course there was also the last pre-Chase race where Matt Kenseth won the Championship with just 1 win.

So, honestly, this lead me to the conclusion that you can't just win the Championship on wins alone, you have to get wins and be a consistent front runner.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

some of us know this and have known it for ages. Guy back in the 80's on the home track hardly ever won, couple of three times a year, but he made every race and finished all of them as well as he could and he won a lot of titles. These goofs crying about Newman don't know spit, but they think they do and that is all that matters to them anyway. Had the same kind of fan back then also, a driver who was super fast and won in spectacular fashion, but he also wrecked and blew up a lot. Granted he was more fun to watch, but to cry about him not winning because he won more races was stupid. You have to race the format, not the win column.
 
SpeedPagan said:
Well like I said, what this tells me is that to be a NASCAR Winston/Nextel/Sprint Cup Champion, you need to not only have wins, but you also need to be a consistent front runner.
Click to expand...
But, when two drivers have 21 Top 5s and 24 Top 10s why should such a large difference in wins not be the deciding factor rather than something like DNFs? 10 wins and 5 DNFs is better than 2 wins and 3 DNFs, no?
 
FLRacingFan said:
Gordon would've won the championship using the the scale they used from 2004-2006 that gave 180 rather than 175 points to the winner. He would've won by even more using the one from 2007-2010 that awarded 185 points to the winner.

Previous systems were not without flaws, but that goes to show you can crown the best driver over the course of the season champion if you adequately weight finishing well.
Click to expand...


Exactly my point, you can use any of the last Nascar points systems to figure out your champion, but the only one that matters is the one that Nascar calls official.
 
Jeffrey00 said:
Exactly my point, you can use any of the last Nascar points systems to figure out your champion, but the only one that matters is the one that Nascar calls official.
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Pretty much. We can sit here arguing about Terry Labonte forever and it won't change the fact that he won the championship in '96.

Like my good buddy StandOnIt said, you race the format to win the championship, not the win column.
 
StandOnIt said:
Exactly my point, you can use any of the last Nascar points systems to figure out your champion, but the only one that matters is the one that Nascar calls official.
Click to expand...

I made my point. Feel free to discuss it with me; if not, then kick rocks.

It's that simple.
 
Very simply , a season long points championship is used in every racing series that I have ever witnessed . It was the foundation of Nascar from day one . Dropping it is suicide.
 
I believe that we are on our 14th version of determining a NASCAR champion. While this is probably the biggest of all of the changes it's just one of many. Nobody seems to have been happy with any of them to date.
 
I think one of the problems facing our sport is the length of the season --- about 10 months. To have a champion determined
by performance through-out the whole year is admirable, but does it play to the masses? And let's face it, attracting masses
of eyeballs on the TV and butts in the seats is imperative to keeping the sport alive and well.

In this day of instant communication and expressing yourself in 140 characters or less, can we remain competitive when we
ask people to sit for 4 or 5 hours of sometimes boring racing?

The old fan in me doesn't like the "new fangled" stuff, but I do see the excitement/interest it has created. And yes, I question
whether that excitement/interest will carry over and actually make new fans.
 
Consistency is more important, if you're consistent enough to win a championship, you're going win at least 1 race.

Guys that win a ton of races but also crash out of a ton of races, arent the best drivers throughout the season, if they were, they wouldn't have crashed out of so many races.
 
Zerkfitting said:
I've always felt consistency is important in NASCAR. Even with "win and you're in" consistency is still a factor as shown by Newman, Kenseth, and all the drivers with one win.
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Consistently not winning. :p

Logano, Gordon, and Keselowski have been the best at getting consistently good results. Harvick has run the best consistently but doesn't have the results to show for it.
 
If the season isn't right for a points championship , then I could see the champion being chosen by a group of sportswriters . This lottery format is kinda comic.
 
Go Panthers said:
Consistency is more important, if you're consistent enough to win a championship, you're going win at least 1 race.

Guys that win a ton of races but also crash out of a ton of races, arent the best drivers throughout the season, if they were, they wouldn't have crashed out of so many races.
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What if the wrecks weren't caused by them? At most, one of Ryan Newman's five wreck-related DNFs in 2003 can be attributed to him.
 
Mr. Gregory said:
Honestly, that's racin', man.
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So those incidents shouldn't matter so much in the standings. Ryan Newman was the best driver that year and a bit of **** luck shouldn't pull down significantly better numbers in the Wins/Top 5s/Top 10s columns as much as they do.

They should stop handing out points after something like 10th, 15th, or 20th.
 
TexasRaceLady said:
But then you could run into the situation of teams just dropping out, along with sponsors, and trying to have a season with short fields.

I, for one, don't want races with just 20 cars competing.
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31 points-eligible drivers have a Top 10 and 44 have a Top 20. The vast majority of the field, if not all of it, will be in the points. Otherwise, drivers not classified can be ranked according to something like best finish or average finish or something.
 
FLRacingFan said:
So those incidents shouldn't matter so much in the standings. Ryan Newman was the best driver that year and a bit of sh!t luck shouldn't pull down significantly better numbers in the Wins/Top 5s/Top 10s columns as much as they do.

They should stop handing out points after something like 10th, 15th, or 20th.
Click to expand...
I disagree. Matt Kenseth and whoever finished ahead of Newman in the points were better than him in 2003. It's not enough in racing to just click off a bunch of wins. You have to be able to consistently finish races in good position to get the most points.

DNFs are part of the game.
 
Mr. Gregory said:
I disagree. Matt Kenseth and whoever finished ahead of Newman in the points were better than him in 2003. It's not enough in racing to just click off a bunch of wins. You have to be able to consistently finish races in good position to get the most points.

DNFs are part of the game.
Click to expand...
& who has the most consistent season with the most points should win!

But nope ;)
 
Mr. Gregory said:
I disagree. Matt Kenseth and whoever finished ahead of Newman in the points were better than him in 2003. It's not enough in racing to just click off a bunch of wins. You have to be able to consistently finish races in good position to get the most points.
Click to expand...
And Newman didn't? He also had more Top 5s than anyone else (17), with a number that can be matched this season by only Logano and Keselowski. Have they not been consistent this year? He also had the second-most Top 10s (22).

Why should you be judged on things out of your control?
 
FLRacingFan said:
And Newman didn't? He also had more Top 5s than anyone else (17), with a number that can be matched this season by only Logano and Keselowski. Have they not been consistent this year? He also had the second-most Top 10s (22).

Why should you be judged on things out of your control?
Click to expand...
Because you have to be able to finish. In racing, everything isn't always in your control. That's the nature of the beast. It takes a little luck to be able to win races, to be consistent, and to not crash or end up with a bunch of DNFs. There's no way you can completely remove the element of luck from the equation.
 
By the way, I read that Bob Latford, who created the points system used from 1975-2003 without the chase, and from 04-10 with the chase, thought that they should've added 10 or 20 more points to his point system, where you'd earn the same amount of points for leading the most laps and finishing 2nd as you would for winning.
 
Mr. Gregory said:
Because you have to be able to finish. In racing, everything isn't always in your control. That's the nature of the beast. It takes a little luck to be able to win races, to be consistent, and to not crash or end up with a bunch of DNFs. There's no way you can completely remove the element of luck from the equation.
Click to expand...
Performance and results should matter more than just finishing. Simply completing races on the lead lap and whatnot is not an extraordinary feat. That lends itself to the mindset of overly conservative racing. Other series have recognized before that luck obscures true performance and that is why we have stats such as driver rating now and why other series have implemented drop races in their championships.
 
FLRacingFan said:
Performance and results should matter more than just finishing. Simply completing races on the lead lap and whatnot is not an extraordinary feat. That lends itself to the mindset of overly conservative racing. Other series have recognized before that luck obscures true performance and that is why we have stats such as driver rating now and why other series have implemented drop races in their championships.
Click to expand...
It takes more than just finishing on the lead lap to win a championship. LOL. And how many people can honestly say that they really pay attention to stuff like the driver rating stat? I don't. I always just assume that Jimmie Johnson has the highest rating. Ha ha.

Anyway, we can sit here and debate this forever, but at the end of the day, it won't change the rules or the record books, so ultimately this is a fruitless endeavor. You have your opinion, I have mine, the dude that created the NASCAR points system has his, and we'll all just agree to disagree and leave it that. :cheers:
 
Mr. Gregory said:
It takes more than just finishing on the lead lap to win a championship. LOL. And how many people can honestly say that they really pay attention to stuff like the driver rating stat? I don't. I always just assume that Jimmie Johnson has the highest rating. Ha ha.

Anyway, we can sit here and debate this forever, but at the end of the day, it won't change the rules or the record books, so ultimately this is a fruitless endeavor. You have your opinion, I have mine, the dude that created the NASCAR points system has his, and we'll all just agree to disagree and leave it that. :cheers:
Click to expand...
amen, it is what it is. we can't change it.
 
Mr. Gregory said:
You have your opinion, I have mine, the dude that created the NASCAR points system has his, and we'll all just agree to disagree and leave it that. :cheers:
Click to expand...
Finally, the beginnings of civility in the forum :cheers:

BOWTIE GUY said:
amen, it is what it is. we can't change it.
Click to expand...
We cannot change it but we are allowed to speculate and debate - without antagonizing and going for each other's jugular. :cool:
 
TexasRaceLady said:
I think one of the problems facing our sport is the length of the season --- about 10 months. To have a champion determined
by performance through-out the whole year is admirable, but does it play to the masses? And let's face it, attracting masses
of eyeballs on the TV and butts in the seats is imperative to keeping the sport alive and well.

In this day of instant communication and expressing yourself in 140 characters or less, can we remain competitive when we
ask people to sit for 4 or 5 hours of sometimes boring racing?

The old fan in me doesn't like the "new fangled" stuff, but I do see the excitement/interest it has created. And yes, I question
whether that excitement/interest will carry over and actually make new fans.
Click to expand...


This is a good point, the length of season does cause issues for determining a champion. On the old system a driver could come out strong in the beginning, and then cruise to the championship. With this system or any chase system a driver that starts strong can lose it all right at the end, even if they were driving the best.
 
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