What would the old points system look like right now?

LewTheShoe said:
It worked to keep the points race close by propping up the mid-field cruisers and under-rewarding the best teams and drivers that did most of the winning. It was never designed to insure that the best driver won the championship. It was designed to keep the points race alive until the end of the season. A points scale that is nearly linear from first place to last place will *always* under-reward the winners and prop up the mid field.

In my opinion, it is the most egregious gimmick in the history of Nascar. I have hated that points system since I first learned how it worked in the late 1970's. And it has resulted in the championship being awarded to the wrong guy multiple times over the years.

IMO, the reason so many people look back fondly at that Latford Points Scale is that it was there for so long, and most people have not compared objectives and outcomes versus truly progressive rewards systems that more accurately reward the accomplishment of winning races.
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Agreed. The primary motivation and emphasis for the Latford scale was creating a system that would reward participation above all else and strongly incentivize teams to compete in every event on the schedule, back when this wasn't a given. It was very poorly designed if rewarding high performance were the goal, and only "worked" when the champion team was so much better than the competition that they would have won under any system.

Any incarnation of the Chase / playoffs is worse, but Latford always needed fixing. It isn't difficult to look around motorsports and find more suitable points distributions.
 
jws926 said:
I still find it funny, NASCAR made changes because drivers were points racing too much, and now we are right back to points racing :laugh:
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Yea I feel like this year has been the most fair with the Stage points, a lot better than what we had in 2014,15,16.
 
kymartin6 said:
That's why I was always a Mark Martin fan........ he hung in like a hair in a biscuit from the time he joined Roush till he quit driving... 5 second place finishes for the Cup..... he may have never won a Cup..... but..... 5 second places is nothing to be sneezed at..... and..... during all those years.... I never heard him complain or snivel about any of them.... he took the 46 point penalty on the nose in '90....... The only time I ever heard him question anything was the '07 Daytona race..... all he said was... ''With all the wrecking.... I thought they would throw the caution''.......
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Mark was always a stand up guy. I was fan going back to his first run in ASA, and always liked him even when he signed to drive for the devil (Jack Roush) :D My dislike for all things Roush goes back way before he ever thought of fielding a Cup car. As much as a fan of Jimmie as I am, I REALLY wanted Mark to win that championship, in a Chevy just to rub Jack's nose in it. :)
 
Snappy D said:
Yea I feel like this year has been the most fair with the Stage points, a lot better than what we had in 2014,15,16.
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It is better than previous years, the drives do seem to be racing for points instead points racing.
 
Wouldn't be so bad without the 10-1 stage points and all that. I think the stages need to be fixed to the top 5 after every segment or they need to go entirely.
 
The old points system can live on if someone wanted to take the time to put it together. Even though I'm fine with the current points system I do like to see how things would stack up under other point systems. I think there was post a long time ago that showed how the list of champions would be different under different points systems.
 
This was one of my all time favorite look(s) back at the current system vs the non Chase system. It only went on to magnify how ridiculous the Chase Era had become when crowning its champion. Many will disagree but this was a real tough pill to swallow for some of us. :mad:

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We're 14 years into this format in some form or another and it still seems no more legitimate to me than when it was first introduced but it is what it is.
 
I have always called it a contrived championship. Artificially making the points battle closer than it is. The idea that you can win the first 35 races of the season, finish 2nd in the final race and lose the title will never sit well with me, which is why I hate the elimination format even worse than the original, although the bonus points are an improvement.
 
Snappy D said:
That’s what’s missing now, authentic full season points battles. In 1995 Jeff vs Dale Earnhardt was awesome, 1996 Jeff vs Texas Terry vs Dale Jarrett, 1997 Jeff vs DJ vs Mark and I’m sure I’m forgetting others but IMO that’s what’s missing every race from February on was it’s own unique playoff race.
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1992...the Alan Kulwicki story...one of the greatest championship battles and an amazing cerebral approach by Alan to win the championship.
 
Hell, I've taken the short cut version. What a waste of time it is to get all excited about the points until like right now at Kansas the cut off race. But they will start in the day after Kansas guessing about who or what will transfer to the next round that is three races away, when the real deal is the 4 car last race? It ain't working that well for me. At this point, I would probably throw in the towel for Truex. It would take a whole lot of flub ups for that team to lose the title, and be watching the various battles for 2nd, 3rd, 4th. etc. until the end of the season and I wouldn't be having to listen to all the B.S. from the booth. A compromise would be to keep the stage points as part of the total points, blow off the win and your in, and the eliminations.
 
PeopleAreStrange said:
This new playoff format (and point structure) is confusing, and I have almost no motivation to learn it.
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Same here.

I've posted this story before but imo, it bears repeating.

One of my adult son's friends, who is a sports enthusiast but not really a racing fan, stopped by the house last year while I was watching the Labor Day weekend Darlington race.

He casually asked, "So, how do they determine the season champion ?"

In about 10 seconds I was able to explain how the pre-Chase points system worked and then went on to try to explain my understanding of the current "playoff" elimination system.

After about a minute and a half of my jabbering in trying to explain the thing, he stopped me cold and laughingly said, "Never mind, it's not that important" as he and my son left, presumably to watch a ball and stick sport at a local watering hole.
 
pjmolo said:
Same here.

I've posted this story before but imo, it bears repeating.

One of my adult son's friends, who is a sports enthusiast but not really a racing fan, stopped by the house last year while I was watching the Labor Day weekend Darlington race.

He casually asked, "So, how do they determine the season champion ?"

In about 10 seconds I was able to explain how the pre-Chase points system worked and then went on to try to explain my understanding of the current "playoff" elimination system.

After about a minute and a half of my jabbering in trying to explain the thing, he stopped me cold and laughingly said, "Never mind, it's not that important" as he and my son left, presumably to watch a ball and stick sport at a local watering hole.
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I gave up myself, I tried learning it I dont get the difference between stage and playoff points, I thought they were the same. Whats the point of learning when it will change into something else a few years from now?
 
StandOnIt said:
Hell, I've taken the short cut version. What a waste of time it is to get all excited about the points until like right now at Kansas the cut off race. But they will start in the day after Kansas guessing about who or what will transfer to the next round that is three races away, when the real deal is the 4 car last race? It ain't working that well for me. At this point, I would probably throw in the towel for Truex. It would take a whole lot of flub ups for that team to lose the title, and be watching the various battles for 2nd, 3rd, 4th. etc. until the end of the season and I wouldn't be having to listen to all the B.S. from the booth. A compromise would be to keep the stage points as part of the total points, blow off the win and your in, and the eliminations.
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Truex should win the Cup this year under any format, he's been on the best team with the best car all year. It'd be a travesty if he got to into that Game 7 moment in Miami and something broke that he couldnt control like an oil line or had a battery issue that took him out of it. Its not fair really.
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
This was one of my all time favorite look(s) back at the current system vs the non Chase system. It only went on to magnify how ridiculous the Chase Era had become when crowning its champion. Many will disagree but this was a real tough pill to swallow for some of us. :mad:

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We're 14 years into this format in some form or another and it still seems no more legitimate to me than when it was first introduced but it is what it is.
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I feel like the playoffs/Chase/ formats screwed Gordon, Edwards and now Harvick the most. SHouldnt Kevin have 2 cups already in the Winston Cup format?
 
Snappy D said:
Truex should win the Cup this year under any format, he's been on the best team with the best car all year. It'd be a travesty if he got to into that Game 7 moment in Miami and something broke that he couldnt control like an oil line or had a battery issue that took him out of it. Its not fair really.
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That happened in '92 when Davy Allison was set to win the championship, he got caught in a wreck. Bill Elliot and Alan Kulwiki ended up making history that day.
 
Zerkfitting said:
That happened in '92 when Davy Allison was set to win the championship, he got caught in a wreck. Bill Elliot and Alan Kulwiki ended up making history that day.
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Allison went into that race within reach of being caught and obviously was. If the last race were this weekend, Truex would have a 101 point lead heading into the finale sans Chase. That's more than a two race lead. He couldn't be caught. That is, unless the points are made completely irrelevant and it's a one race shootout.

Allison '92 = Natural and unparalleled drama.

Truex '17 = Made for television game #7 moment.
 
Zerkfitting said:
Yep. But it would probable take decades (if ever) to see that type of thing happen again.
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Quite possibly it could have, but isn't that what makes that season so memorable? Now, we are guaranteed to have a four car race for the championship in every single season finale. They tend to blur when they are manufactured like that. The seasons were special by their own merit in the past. By the design of this playoff system we've now lost a true season's battle to the end. Game 7 moments were touted by NASCAR's commander and chief but are these game 7 moments the same as one's that occur naturally?
 
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Zerkfitting said:
Yep. But it would probable take decades (if ever) to see that type of thing happen again.

And I will be bummed if Truex doesn't win it this year - he deserves it.
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Yah I was about to say Davey knew he had that point cushion, knew it going in. That played out over the course of the full season, Truex doesnt have that his point total is zero going into Miami no matter how big his lead was over the course of regular season and playoffs, to me that just doesnt seem fair.
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
By the design of this playoff system we've now lost a true season's battle to the end. Game 7 moments were touted by NASCAR's commander and chief but are these game 7 moments the same as one's that occur naturally?
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"When everyone is super, no one will be."
 
AuzGrams said:
Wouldn't be so bad without the 10-1 stage points and all that. I think the stages need to be fixed to the top 5 after every segment or they need to go entirely.
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I agree 100%. Points to the top 5 BUT no caution, just keep going for the next stage.
BTW, I still think pitting under green only is the only fair way to handle cautions.
 
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