An Alternative Metric for Rainy Days

I’ve said before that an alternative metric is needed because the current one penalizes drivers too severely for one bad race. The fourth rained-out qualifying session in six Chase races brings home the point. Some drivers complain about the metric. But Ryan Blaney pointed out today that he — like every other driver—will praise the metric when it it works in his favor and complain about it when it doesn’t. So the drivers aren’t the right people to ask about about metrics.

The current formula that determines the starting field when qualifying cannot be held is 70% of the car’s finish in the last race and 30% of the car’s ranking. I say ‘the car’ because it’s based on owners points rather than drivers’ points. Creating an alternative metric (or three) is as simple as changing a single number in the ratio between recent and season-long achievements.

The Data

To show this, I calculated the metric for this week (Charlotte) using the current formula and three alternatives:

• 50% rank/50% last race
• 60% rank/40% last race
• 70% rank/30% last race

I show the results in the table below. The only thing I didn’t include is what happens in case of a tie, but that won’t play into the results much.

I list each case by car number because points depend on the car/owner rather than the driver. That normally isn’t an issue, but Ryan Preece’s penalty for pressing the button makes it relevant this year.

The Top Four Cars Basically Stay the Same

• The first two cars, Kyle Larson’s No. 5 and Chase Briscoe’s No. 19 remain the same in all four of these schemes.
• Tyler Reddick’s No. 45 and Ryan Blaney’s No. 12 are third and fourth in all four schemes; however, they switch positions the less the most recent finish factors into the final.

Middling Changes in the Middle

It’s only when we get to cars ranked fifth and higher that we start to see changes in positioning.

• Austin Cindric, who’s done really well at the last two mile-and-a-half tracks, will start fifth under the current metric. The worst he would start under the 30/70 metric is seventh. So not too big a change.
• The No. 22 of Joey Logano would have the opposite experience. He’ll start seventh under the current metric and could have started as high as fifth under the varients I’ve explored.

Chase-Impacting Changes

But even those aren’t majorly significant. Let’s look at some of the Chase cars further down in the starting list.

• Denny Hamlin will start 12th. If we went to the most extreme variations I examined, he would have started sixth. That six-position/three-row change is significant, especially given that earning stage 1 points does depend on starting position.
• The biggest potential impact, in terms of positioning for the championship, is for Christopher Bell. Given his power-steering troubles last week, he’ll start buried in mid-field at P17. If the weighting of recent/rankings are switched, he starts eighth.

Now, maybe you think that a driver having his power steering go out should be penalized. But nine spots? When he’s still in the running for the championship?

That’s a little much for my sensibilities, although evidently not too much for NASCAR’s.

Impact of an Alternative Metric on Non-Chasers

This system does disadvantage non-Chase drivers because they always rank 17th or worse.

Even if you go all the way to 30% recent/70% record, we would still have a non-chase driver (Shane van Gisbergen) starting in P14, so it’s still possible for a driver on a roll to break into the top 16 starting spots.

The best of all possible worlds is to have qualifying. But when we can’t qualify, the next best thing is to prioritize the Chase for the championship. Lets give the drivers who have spent the previous 31 races getting to the Chase a fighting chance. It’s too late to change it this year, but let’s make 2027 the year of the alternative metric.