Indy 500 goes for F1 style quali shoot out

[lkjohnson1950]

  I totally agree. The Chase was begun, at least partly, because, Matt Kenseth won the Sprint Cup with only 1 race win, but about 30 out of 35 top tens. If that's not the way you want your championship won then give more points for a win, not an artificial reshuffle of the points at the end of the season.

Lonny

[Jericoke]

I totally agree. The Chase was begun, at least partly, because, Matt Kenseth won the Sprint Cup with only 1 race win, but about 30 out of 35 top tens. If that's not the way you want your championship won then give more points for a win, not an artificial reshuffle of the points at the end of the season.

Lonny

NASCAR's scoring system is... odd to say the least.  Points for wins, for leading a lap, for finishing a lap, for finishing a race, for showing up...

I suspect it has to do with baseball and American football... the sports are so full of statistics, NASCAR figured that complicated scoring would appeal.  None of the FIA's 'most points for a win' stuff.

Are there any European sports that collect large stats?  Is anything tracked in soccer/football besides wins and goals?  I have never made an effort to understand cricket, but I assume it has complicated stats like baseball does.

[cosworth151]

In NASCAR, all starters score points (much like T-ball ). There is a 5 point bonus for leading a lap, and another 5 point bonus for leading the most laps. There used to be a cash award for leading at halfway, but they did away with that.

I think every sport has its own corps of stat-mad anoraks. I remember sitting at the bar in The Slippery Noodle Inn in Indy during USGP week-end a few years ago. Several fellows were sitting there arguing about the chassis numbers of the cars that certain drivers drove in certain races!