Statistics
Can Anyone Really Win at Talladega?
Every year at this time, we hear that Talladega is a wild card because “Anyone can win”. Which, of course, made me wonder — can anyone win? […]
math
math
How Much Difference Does One Position Make in NASCAR Winnings?
Given all the rain at Daytona this weekend, there was plenty of time to think about auxiliary NASCAR issues. Regular readers know that I’m a huge fan of the racing-reference.info website because they have a trove […]
Graphs and Charts
NASCAR Announcing – A New Look at Sporting News’ Poll
Bob Pockrass of Sporting News presented the results of a reader poll of NASCAR announcers. By way of disclaimers, this wasn’t a scientific survey – it was a sample of people who feel strongly enough […]
Busch, Kyle
Can You Predict a Driver’s Success from their Rookie Year Stats?
Now that the season is over, it’s time to look through the statistics from the year. One big story this year was Danica Patrick’s rookie season in Sprint Cup. She didn’t set the world on […]
Aerodynamics
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 […]
Busch, Kyle
Do Drivers Slow Down When They Get Older?
NOTE: I’ve revisited this topic in a more-recent blog that has additional data. I’d encourage you to look there, as well There are a lot of things people say in NASCAR that have been said […]
Cautions
Will the Gen-6 Car Affect the Number of Cautions?
I love the Gen-6 car. Not as much as I love the Nationwide cars (but that’s got more to do with what I drive than it does the cars). The big question is whether the decrease in cautions is going to be changed because of the new car.Let’s start (as we usually do) with the new car. […]
Busch, Kyle
Is There Really a Second-Place Curse?
One of the commentators after the final race in Homestead mentioned that Jimmie Johnson should be happy he finished in third because it allows him to avoid the “dreaded second-place curse”.
Anytime someone says something like that, it makes me wonder whether there really is a curse, or whether that person had just been talking to Carl Edwards. So I analyzed a little data and guess what… there really IS a second place curse. […]
Cautions
Cautions: A New Low for NASCAR
At the start of the season, the big news was that cautions were remarkably down from last year. As I showed, this isn’t a new trend – it’s a continuing trend since 2007. Since the season’s data are now complete, I thought it was time to revisit the data. […]
Auto Club Speedway of California
Degrees of Difference: How is Martinsville like Fontana?
I love getting questions from readers because I always worry that the geeky stuff I find interesting is only interesting to me. I love it even more when they not only give me a question, […]