The MAVTV 500 and the Trouble with ARP

Hey there Internet. I missed you. Did you miss me? I hope so. I really love writing this little IndyCar blog. This week, we'll talk about the black hole that ate June; a classic in Fontana; and what I'll be doing the rest of the year. Let's do it!


The June Black Hole

As you can tell by the .BlogSpot in the middle of my web address, I use Google tools almost exclusively to write this here blog. I don't know why, but there was a period in early June when my computers (one all-in-one and one laptop) refused to play nicely with Google's tools when using Chrome. That's weird. I still don't know why that happened. It still happens to a degree. I don't pretend to speak computer, so this will just go down as a mystery for the ages.

Anyway, that really slowed me up. Then the hard drive on my laptop died. It just gave out. Fortunately, the senior pastor at my parish (shout out to the Rev. David J. Glesne) speaks computer much more fluently than I do, and he was able to save most of my stuff, and with the help of an extremely skilled parishioner (shout out to Frank Neumann) was able to get me back up and running with an SSD replacing my old hard drive. Anyway, I was hoping to give you the backlog of scorecards, but with my computer out of commission for so long the backlog became insurmountable.

But, the rest of my sob story will have to wait, because I prefer to focus on the positive, so let's talk about:


A Classic in Fontana

Here is the scorecard for the MAVTV 500. If you didn't like this race, you don't like IndyCar racing.

Finish	Driver	Grid	Led	Completed	Score
1	Rahal	19	15	250	92.13
2	Kanaan	6	23	250	61.12
3	Andretti	3	31	250	51.85
4	Montoya	5	5	250	46.65
5	Karam	10	5	250	53.17
6	Dixon	7	7	250	42.70
7	Jakes	23	0	250	71.74
8	Kimball	13	0	250	45.65
9	Pagenaud	1	3	250	15.82
10	Hawksworth	17	0	250	45.65
11	Munoz	11	14	250	31.06
12	Coletti	21	0	250	45.65
13	Mann	22	0	250	43.48
14	Bourdais	15	0	250	23.91
15	Hunter-Reay	14	3	249	18.00
16	Briscoe	16	7	249	18.79
17	Vautier	20	0	246	21.63
18	Sato	9	31	241	0.16
19	Power	8	62	241	-0.23
20	Chaves	18	0	237	4.57
21	Newgarden	12	0	161	-6.08
22	Carpenter	4	1	157	-20.10
23	Castroneves	2	43	136	-17.98

You will likely note two things about this scorecard:

1) It lacks a column for "Average Running Position"
2) Longtime readers will notice that there is a larger-than-normal "gap" between the high and low scores (92.13 to -20.10)

All of this has to do with why I haven't updated the backlog of scores from after the Indy 500, so let's talk about that now.


Going Forward

As I said at the top. I really like writing this blog. I know I'm a little erratic. I know that I'm not the most active guy on Twitter. The IndyCar Blogs (follow them @TheIndyCarBlogs, it's awesome) has me rated as a "Semi-Active Blog" and that's fair. But, I love it. I really love it. I think it's fun to try and figure out who had the best race. I find it fascinating to look "beyond the box score," as it were. I have no desire to hang it up any time soon.

Let me repeat. I have no desire to hang it up any time soon.

But (there's always a but, isn't there), I can't keep going the way I was. The formula that I like to use for Race Scores involves computing Average Running Position. To do that, I have to take the lap chart that IndyCar provides at indycar.com/stats and then I have to manually enter into a spreadsheet where each car is scored for each lap. I have found literally no other way to do this. This is a major problem for oval races. The shortest oval races on the schedule (in terms of laps) are Indy and Pocono at 200 laps a piece. I just can't enter that many laps in a week with the time I have available.

And, this brings us to the MAVTV 500 scores that you see above. These scores are computed using what I call my "Old Formula." This formula basically accounts for two things: finishing position and positions gained from green to checkers. They do a pretty good job of some things. For instance, it shows the relative strength of Sage Karam's day (whether or not Karam's skill / racecraft was as good as his performance on paper is up for debate). Also, the above scores reward drivers like Stefano Coletti and Pippa Mann for keeping their noses clean and finishing at the back end of the lead lap.

The problem with the formula used for scoring above is that it OVER emphasizes these distinctions. There is no universe in which the second best drive of the day was turned in by Buckshot Jakes, but that's what you get with this formula. Mann and Coletti (as I said above) deserve praise, but they didn't do better than Scott Dixon or Simon Pagenaud. So, I have to do something different. So, I'm going to do something different. Here's what the rest of the year will look like for me:

- Having lost so many races to the June Black Hole, I'm going to put the RSWC to bed for the year. It will be back.

- I will continue to score road/street events with the formula that includes Average Running Position. Those have few enough laps that I can manage.

- I will use the remaining oval races to try and figure out a new way to score ovals.


Oval Possibilities

This formula just doesn't work for ovals. I've thought that this was true since I started doing this back in the 2012 season. I made the change after the 2013 Indy 500 (my first season blogging about my little experiment), and I liked it so much better. So, I need a formula that more accurately matches the "eye test." Here are my off the top of the head ideas about how to do that:

- I could adjust the relative weight that I give to both of the terms in this formula (race finish and positions gained). Right now they are equal, and perhaps weighting finish more heavily would "normalize" the results somewhat.

- Insert a term as a replacement for Average Running Position. Something like percentage of laps run in the Top 5 might be good. I think I would be able to tabulate that more quickly than ARP.

Those are basically the two options, although the "introduce a new term" option is really a range of options. So: Milwaukee, Iowa, Pocono; you are my guinea pigs. Prepare to be experimented upon.


Stay Tuned

To my tens of readers, thank you for continuing to read this. I am glad to have you. I am glad that we all have this sport in our lives. Let me know what you want to see going forward. What do you like about my little corner of the internet? What would you like to see different? Got any ideas for how to score ovals? I want to hear from you, so you can leave a comment here or hit me up on Twitter (@ScoringIndy). I know I don't post much, but I look at it daily. Thanks again! I'll see you on Friday.

-- Guido