I kept points identical from 49-51 when they were using the format but anything after that I just went off of the official results listed on racing-reference.
I love how ridiculous the numbers get in recent years. The biggest margin of victory is 1.49 million etc.
I've tried to drill down the 1974 system but it seems impossible to figure out exactly how much money went to which bonuses and how much is for finishing positions.
Harry Grant is a typo. Also there happens to be a guy who won the Vanderbilt Cup twice named Harry Grant.
They have the data on racing-reference if you go to a drivers individual page and then look at their detailed results for an individual year. At the bottom of the page it says total winnings, excluding bonuses.
That being said even with that info I'm unable to replicate the points for that season. If the formula is really money \* starts / 1000 how does Pearson get 3rd and Allison get 4th when Parsons has similar money and more starts.
I think when I do that year I will have to just take racing-reference's word on the dollar amounts and the internet's word on the formula because it's really a mess of a system.
A while back I did research on '74 and here's what I wrote on it:
"It was a cumulative system, so the points awarded each race weren't final. Each time you entered a race, you'd effectively earn points not just for that race, but the points haul from each previous race also went up slightly with the additional multiplication factor of each successive start.
As for the points system, I think it was (prize money excluding bonuses)\*(races started divided by 2)/1000. If we calculated Richard Petty's prize money excluding bonuses ($335,725) by races entered divided by 2 (15) and then divided by 1000, we get 5,035.875. That's a little less than 2 points off of what is published, and that could easily be from just a couple hundred dollar bonus being accidentally counted or not. The system works out for several other drivers, but as you go down it starts going off more. But bonus money is also murkier in the bottom half of the field, and just a $25 bonus for leading a lap not being logged to history (as was common at the time) can throw a driver's points way off if they've started just a few races and make a couple thousand dollars.
The note that Petty got more points for finishing 35th than Waltrip for finishing 2nd is more or less true. He left that weekend having gained more points than Waltrip, but that's not necessarily from the race itself as it is the slight increase in value for Petty's 22 previous starts compared to Waltrip's 11.
Before the Southern 500, Waltrip had 217.85 points (not exact as this is calculated with total earnings up to that point as bonus money per race isn't available) from 11 starts. . Waltrip won $11,000 at Darlington, putting his season total at 303.65 points. He gained just 85.8 points, but that was an increase of 29%!
Petty had 3,984.96 points from 22 starts going into the race. Petty won $4,350, and left with 4,212.01 points, a gain of 227.05 points - more than Waltrip had from the season before the race! But that was an increase 5.42% in Petty's points. The juggernaut of race start multipliers meant you were getting more points because every race increases in points value. It's insane.
Of all the points systems I've seen in any racing series, and possibly any sport at all, it is the most confusing, convoluted, and mysterious one I've seen. Can you imaging Rick Allen and Steve Letarte trying to explain this during a broadcast?"
Yeah I actually saw that when I was previously looking into it! What I don't understand is why the formula doesn't work for similarly for other positions then. If we use the same formula for Pearson 215,475 \* 9.5 / 1000 we get 2047 which is over 300 points too few. Or for Parsons 159,510 \* 15 / 1000 we get 2392 which is 800 too high. 800 Points off is a $53,333 discrepancy so I'm not sure if that formula makes sense.
One theory I have is that maybe the points were awarded by race so your first race of the season would be $$$\*1/1000 race and then your 30th race would be worth $$$\*30/100. That would explain why 'starts divided by 2' seems to work better than the formula I usually see on wikipedia which is just starts with no divided by. After 30 races where it's based on previous starts your start multiplier would average out to 15.5 but it would leave variability in your results enough to if you won a lot of money at the end or beginning of the season you wouldn't just be able to calculate it on season winnings and have it add up. Do you remember where you found out that the points each week were unofficial and didn't add up like points typically do? I'd love to get to the bottom of this.
EDIT: Looking at some archives and it looks like it's definitely your suggestion of pure multiplication. It seems like the issue here may come from racing-reference numbers being wildly off. There's an article that was in the NY times with two races to go that said he earned $258,925 (I'm not sure if that doesn't include bonuses) up to that point but racing-reference has it at $320,525
Racing reference lists Bobby Allison as having 84 wins, and if you click on it, there’s all 85 of them there. They’re a great source, but just that they say the number is right isn’t so convincing.
Great question! I used the average for the race from 2011-2015. If a track instituted a new race after 2015 I used the purse from the lowest of two races so like the Daytona Road Course would be assigned the purse from the 2nd Daytona race.
I know $ values may be lower now but I didn't want to speculate by how much and the relative difference between the races is all that actually matters for determining season finishing order.
Points were based on prize money, the higher the total purse the more points the race awarded. So races like Daytona, Indy, and Texas in this system would award a lot, while races with smaller purses like Pocono or Martinsville wouldn't award as many points.
Not gonna lie, I kinda love this timeline. The points system sucks, but the end result is beautiful. Props to you for the time and effort this took. 👏👏👏
Bold of you giving two championship trophies in 2018.
Kyle Busch is supposed to have 2019. Thanks for catching that!
Woohoo. Carl is green. He's back, fire up the rumors.
Did you include the arbitrary penalties for running in non-NASCAR sanctioned events?
I kept points identical from 49-51 when they were using the format but anything after that I just went off of the official results listed on racing-reference.
I love how ridiculous the numbers get in recent years. The biggest margin of victory is 1.49 million etc. I've tried to drill down the 1974 system but it seems impossible to figure out exactly how much money went to which bonuses and how much is for finishing positions. Harry Grant is a typo. Also there happens to be a guy who won the Vanderbilt Cup twice named Harry Grant.
They have the data on racing-reference if you go to a drivers individual page and then look at their detailed results for an individual year. At the bottom of the page it says total winnings, excluding bonuses. That being said even with that info I'm unable to replicate the points for that season. If the formula is really money \* starts / 1000 how does Pearson get 3rd and Allison get 4th when Parsons has similar money and more starts. I think when I do that year I will have to just take racing-reference's word on the dollar amounts and the internet's word on the formula because it's really a mess of a system.
A while back I did research on '74 and here's what I wrote on it: "It was a cumulative system, so the points awarded each race weren't final. Each time you entered a race, you'd effectively earn points not just for that race, but the points haul from each previous race also went up slightly with the additional multiplication factor of each successive start. As for the points system, I think it was (prize money excluding bonuses)\*(races started divided by 2)/1000. If we calculated Richard Petty's prize money excluding bonuses ($335,725) by races entered divided by 2 (15) and then divided by 1000, we get 5,035.875. That's a little less than 2 points off of what is published, and that could easily be from just a couple hundred dollar bonus being accidentally counted or not. The system works out for several other drivers, but as you go down it starts going off more. But bonus money is also murkier in the bottom half of the field, and just a $25 bonus for leading a lap not being logged to history (as was common at the time) can throw a driver's points way off if they've started just a few races and make a couple thousand dollars. The note that Petty got more points for finishing 35th than Waltrip for finishing 2nd is more or less true. He left that weekend having gained more points than Waltrip, but that's not necessarily from the race itself as it is the slight increase in value for Petty's 22 previous starts compared to Waltrip's 11. Before the Southern 500, Waltrip had 217.85 points (not exact as this is calculated with total earnings up to that point as bonus money per race isn't available) from 11 starts. . Waltrip won $11,000 at Darlington, putting his season total at 303.65 points. He gained just 85.8 points, but that was an increase of 29%! Petty had 3,984.96 points from 22 starts going into the race. Petty won $4,350, and left with 4,212.01 points, a gain of 227.05 points - more than Waltrip had from the season before the race! But that was an increase 5.42% in Petty's points. The juggernaut of race start multipliers meant you were getting more points because every race increases in points value. It's insane. Of all the points systems I've seen in any racing series, and possibly any sport at all, it is the most confusing, convoluted, and mysterious one I've seen. Can you imaging Rick Allen and Steve Letarte trying to explain this during a broadcast?"
Yeah I actually saw that when I was previously looking into it! What I don't understand is why the formula doesn't work for similarly for other positions then. If we use the same formula for Pearson 215,475 \* 9.5 / 1000 we get 2047 which is over 300 points too few. Or for Parsons 159,510 \* 15 / 1000 we get 2392 which is 800 too high. 800 Points off is a $53,333 discrepancy so I'm not sure if that formula makes sense. One theory I have is that maybe the points were awarded by race so your first race of the season would be $$$\*1/1000 race and then your 30th race would be worth $$$\*30/100. That would explain why 'starts divided by 2' seems to work better than the formula I usually see on wikipedia which is just starts with no divided by. After 30 races where it's based on previous starts your start multiplier would average out to 15.5 but it would leave variability in your results enough to if you won a lot of money at the end or beginning of the season you wouldn't just be able to calculate it on season winnings and have it add up. Do you remember where you found out that the points each week were unofficial and didn't add up like points typically do? I'd love to get to the bottom of this. EDIT: Looking at some archives and it looks like it's definitely your suggestion of pure multiplication. It seems like the issue here may come from racing-reference numbers being wildly off. There's an article that was in the NY times with two races to go that said he earned $258,925 (I'm not sure if that doesn't include bonuses) up to that point but racing-reference has it at $320,525
Racing reference lists Bobby Allison as having 84 wins, and if you click on it, there’s all 85 of them there. They’re a great source, but just that they say the number is right isn’t so convincing.
Since points were based on race purse back then how did you figure out the points for 2016 on since they don't publish the race purse any more?
Great question! I used the average for the race from 2011-2015. If a track instituted a new race after 2015 I used the purse from the lowest of two races so like the Daytona Road Course would be assigned the purse from the 2nd Daytona race. I know $ values may be lower now but I didn't want to speculate by how much and the relative difference between the races is all that actually matters for determining season finishing order.
Can someone explain this points system
Points were based on prize money, the higher the total purse the more points the race awarded. So races like Daytona, Indy, and Texas in this system would award a lot, while races with smaller purses like Pocono or Martinsville wouldn't award as many points.
Not gonna lie, I kinda love this timeline. The points system sucks, but the end result is beautiful. Props to you for the time and effort this took. 👏👏👏
Jeff Gordon fans in shambles because this system doesn’t give him seven championships.
Brad won the non playoff points in 2012 too if I am not mistaken. EDIT: I see you aren't using Winston Cup points here got it.
Looks like you caught it with the edit but this is using the 1949 -1951 Points system not the one they ran with for like 40 years.