Dream Point System

[Snake X3]

I don't know if this is much better than how drivers qualified for the Saturday heats last year. JD won his heat and his feature but he's only 8th in points. B-Shep finished 2nd in his heat and won his feature and is 12th. Meanwhile Frank Heckenast finished 4th in his heat and 10th in the feature and is only 9 points behind B-Shep. I think they put a bit too much emphasis on qualifying, especially since the guys going out near the end of qualifying are at a pretty big disadvantage.

You can see the points after Thursday night below the Race Monitor living scoring here...

http://www.eldoraspeedway.com/livetiming/

Points after Thursday...

1 Josh Richards 537
2 Billy Moyer 535
3 Brian Shirley 527
4 Tim McCreadie 524
4 Jimmy Owens 521
6 Jon Henry 518
6 Ricky Thornton Jr 518
8 Jonathan Davenport 508
9 Dale McDowell 506
10 Mike Marlar 492
10 Steve Francis 492
12 Brandon Sheppard 491
13 Frank Heckenast Jr. 482

[zach51]

That does seem a little odd, but I guess with the way they have the heat inverts they have to put some type of emphasis on qualifying or else guys would be sandbagging and have no motivation to get quick time. If they ditched the invert, they could nix the points for qualifying, but then your heats would likely not be as exciting.

I was in-and-out of qualifying, but I still haven't figured out how they split up the cars. I would think if they were doing twin features they should have two sets of qualifying and not lump them all together. Here's how I thought they were going to do it:

Run cars who drew 1-40 in 1st round of qualifying, sort those cars into the first 4 heats
Run cars who drew 41-80 (or however many there were) in 2nd round of qualifying, sort those cars into the 2nd 4 heats.
Run heats 1-4, which set up their B and A lineups
Run heats 5-8, which set up their B and A lineups
Run Group 1 B
Run Group 2 B
Run Group 1 A
Run Group 2 A.

[Cleetus Motorsports]

I agree with ya snake. it does seem this points deal rewards qualifying too much. last night if you drew early for qualifying you could get a good lap. anyone who drew late the track was not as fast so they were at a disadvantage. what zach said sounds like a better way, split the field in half and group a qualifies against each other and group b against each other. more fair that way instead of so much riding on when you go out for qualifying.

[W2Racing09]

I did think it was odd the way they figured it -- I mean I'm not going to complain that Richards is first in points but I think more weight should have been on the racing. I expected to see the points look a lot like the finishing order from the features.

[Senroc-Systems]

Does anyone. know exactly how the points are awarded? Is it written anywhere for us to see and know exactly how they set the line ups?

[Crossbones]

Are they accumulating the two night totals or are they taking the best point night for each driver?

[dunkard_trapper]

time trails = 200, 198, 196 etc.
heats 100, 97, 94 etc.
features 250, 246, 242 etc.

[SprintFun]

Should use the Knoxville Nationals format. That's the perfect point format with the huge heat race inversion to me.

[rickybrown1952]

this is probably a dumb question but what exactly is the points for

[The Boss]

The points determine where everyone starts in the heat races on saturday. If I understand correctly, the top two in points get the provisionals in row 10 instead of the top two qualifiers that don't make it through the heats

[rickybrown1952]

OK thanks a bunch

[The Boss]

No problem. If I understand correctly the points overtake qualifying times. So drivers are lined up Saturday based on points instead of qualifying time.

[The Boss]

No problem. If I understand correctly the points overtake qualifying times. So drivers are lined up Saturday based on points instead of qualifying time.

[Snake X3]

I tried jacking around the points where qualifying was worth less and heat worth more etc, but because qualifying points decrease by two down from 200, heats by three down from 100 and the feature/bmains by four down from 250/154 the system isn't overly weighted in favor of the qualifying. I know it seems that way. It did to me. But when I did the math it really wasn't that bad. Of course in the case of Bloomquist on Thursday it can be a big deal, but that was just a lot bad luck and everything going wrong.

I agree with Zach. The best way to handle it is to split the field to even things out more. But to me the bigger problem is the invert. We've heard the drivers say it all weekend. The invert sucks. Drivers want to win based on their skill, not some gimmick. And yeah...I know...the history and the full field inverts back in the day, but for a big money race that is supposed to showcase the top drivers competing for $100k IMO it's kind of a joke that they want to reward mediocrity for any reason.

On the other side of the coin, the cream usually rises. If you look at the points through Friday the best drivers somehow managed to end up at the top. Even losing one night Bloomquist made up a lot of ground and should make the feature unless he has more bad luck.

[old fan]

why care except being locked in you want 30 th or 36 th in points it always been that way

[Bubstr]

Seems to me, the points worked out fairly well. The ones that had no bad luck and drove a smart race, are on track for a win Saturday night. As far as the invert goes, if you can't make up 3 spots in a heat race then run a hundred lap race, you may not have deserved that win.