Looking Back on Bama

Greetings Internet! I hope you all enjoyed yesterday's race-itude as much as I did. Compelling action on track, and the grass is actually green in Alabama. (It gives me a little hope for Wisconsin... Maybe by the time Milwaukee comes around...)

Anyways, I know what you're here for. Here's the gala of data:

Race Finish	Driver	Starting Position	Laps Led	Laps Completed	Race Score
1	Hunter-Reay	1	53	90	79.44
2	Dixon	4	0	90	51.92
3	Castroneves	6	25	90	65.81
4	Kimball	5	3	90	47.82
5	Power	2	9	90	41.54
6	Pagenaud	13	0	90	53.85
7	Andretti	7	0	90	38.46
8	Wilson	8	0	90	36.54
9	Newgarten	22	0	90	59.62
10	Vautier	3	0	90	19.23
11	Tagliani	15	0	90	38.46
12	Viso	16	0	90	36.54
13	Kanaan	19	0	90	38.46
14	Sato	12	0	90	21.15
15	Servia	18	0	90	28.85
16	Bordais	23	0	90	34.62
17	Hildebrand	24	0	90	32.69
18	de Silvestro	14	0	90	9.62
19	Allmendinger	10	0	90	-1.92
20	Saavadra	9	0	90	-7.69
21	Rahal	21	0	90	11.54
22	Carpenter	26	0	89	17.22
23	Jakes	11	0	86	-14.36
24	Beatriz	25	0	65	7.16
25	Franchitti	17	0	42	-3.33
26	Hinchcliffe	25	0	3	1.86

Quick Observations:

- Hunter-Reay (79.44); Castroneves (65.81); and Newgarten (59.62) on the Race Score Podium.

- The only interesting one of those three is Josef Newgarten, who charges from P22 to P9 to grab the third spot. I'd say this is sort of the expectation at Barber, not a ton of passing in the front, so someone working 13 spots up the grid like Newgarten did in his #67 Honda is worth recognizing.

- Lots of Race Scores in the 30s and 40s. You almost expect that with Barber Motorsports Park. As I alluded to earlier, with such a technical course, it's hard to gain or lose lots of positions, which is what makes Newgarten's run amazing.


Twitter Predictions:

- #HIGPA Prediction 1) Kimball is this race's Simona: good car, but won't improve position much, and gets a lower Race Score because of it.

- VERDICT: Mostly on. Kimball starts P5; finishes P4; has a Race Score of 47.82 (outside the top 5). The only difference between his run, and Simona's run last week is that he moved up a spot, whereas she moved down two. And, that kept him in the Race Score World Championship points.

- #HIGPA Prediction 2) Pagenaud and Hinch get big Race Scores. Those teams know what to do and they're farther back than they should be.

- VERDICT: Halfway there. Pagenaud makes me feel smart. Hinch makes me cry. I will say, for the record, that was not Hinchcliffe's fault.

- #HIGPA Prediction 2a) Add Franchitti in pencil to prediction 2. In pencil because I don't trust him to not to ruin his own day again.

- VERDICT: See Hinchcliffe. Franchitti was having a very good drive, but something broke on the #10 Honda, and that ended his day. Thank goodness for Pagenaud. Again, this was a good prediction, and Franchitti didn't ruin his own day, so I feel good about it.

- #HIGPA Prediction 3) A Honda wins, probably Dixon.

- VERDICT: Nope. The Hondas were good, with 6 of the top 10; but I should have known better than to pick Scott Dixon at Barber. He finishes second for the fourth year running. Also, he's a foolproof trivia answer. If anyone asks you "Who finished second at the IndyCar race at Barber in..." you can cut them off before they say the year. The answer is Scott Dixon. Also, Dixon gets quote of the week for suggesting that he go buy a bridesmaid's dress after four straight years in second.

- #HIGPA Prediction 4) Castroneves leaves Alabama with the lead in the Race Score World Championship. (Mostly because of Turbo the snail)

- VERDICT: Nailed it. Fear the Snail.


R.S.W.C. Update

Here are the updated standings in the Race Score World Championship:

Driver	RSWC Points	Points Back
Castroneves	43	0
Dixon	28	-15
Hunter-Reay	25	-18
Newgarten	15	-28
Viso	15	-28
Pagenaud	12	-31
Andretti	12	-31
Kanaan	11	-32
Kimball	8	-35
Power	6	-37
Tagliani	6	-37
Bordais	6	-37
Wilson	2	-41
Carpenter	1	-42

Observations:

- Interesting that the Top 3 in the RSWC are the Top 3 in IndyCar series points (in the same order, no less).

- As I said before, fear the snail.

-  Drivers in the top half of the IndyCar standings that don't have any points in the RSWC: Simona de Silvestro and Takuma Sato. They won't stay off this list for long.

- Ed Carpenter will finish in the Top 10 for the RSWC. I'm sticking by it. But, I don't know that E.J. Viso will.


Announcement:

In my pokings around on the little corner of the internet devoted to open-wheel racing, I've discovered that MoreFrontWing.com (shameless and unsolicited plug for a great IndyCar site) has lap charts for IndyCar events. This will allow me to incorporate some other things into my Race Score formula. Most notably, it lets me play with average running position.

This blessing, however, is also a curse. You see, computing average running position from just the data that I have means that I have to enter lap-by-lap data into a spreadsheet. I'm willing to do this, but it's time consuming. This means that I'm not going to have a new formula done immediately, due to the requirements of needing to test it to make sure it does what I want it to do: generate accurate and thought-provoking insights about drivers' performance in races.

Therefore, the announcement is this: starting with the 2013 Indy 500, Scoring Indy will be using a formula that accounts for average running position (as well as the things, for which the current formula accounts). I need all the time up to Indy to get the formula right.

Stay tuned to the blog and @ScoringIndy on Twitter for updates on the new formula. We might try out some different stuff using the F1 results from China. That could be a fun project for next week...

That's all I've got for now. I won't be gone long.

-- Guido