The Science of Speed: Week Ending 11/14/13

Hard to believe it’s winter, but we got our first snow already. Here’s the news of the week.

• It’s holiday shopping time – great idea for your gearhead: magazine subscriptions.
  • Racecar Enginering has some special rates
  • A two-year digital subscription to Circle Track for under $15
• Despite hoping for a down-to-the-last-lap Homestead finale, all the stats geeks cite a pretty high probability Johnson takes it all.
  •  36 Races notes that Johnson has a 91% chance of winning the championship, but also that Harvick has a 3% chance of taking home the title.
  • Focusing more on who wins the Homestead race, PitRho has an interesting first choice for your fantasy team:  Parker Kligerman.
• @nascarnomics looks NPR’s “esteemed commentator” Frank DeFord’s assertion that NASCAR fan numbers rose as speed increased and now that we’re only getting marginal increases in speed, that explains the declining attendance.  He analyzes attendance vs. pole speed and the results are very interesting.
• F1’s all aflutter about the ugly noses on the 2014 car.
• Have you ever seen a string theorist interviewed by a cat?  If not, you really should.

And in my news, I’m busy getting things ready for the end of the NASCAR season.  Whole lot of interesting stats I’ve found looking at the year as a whole.  Those’ll be coming up soon…