Earlier this year I asked Cliff DeJong from NASCAR Fantasy Racing Cheat Sheet how he ranked the tracks according to their predictability. He sent me the following, which lists all the tracks on the NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule ranked from most predictable to least:
A screenshot from the article.
This off-season I finally got around to reading The AccuPredict Method, an article by Cliff DeJong over on NASCAR Fantasy Racing Cheat Sheet. Wow, I sure wish I’d read it earlier.
DeJong is a research scientist who says he’s been crunching numbers his entire life. He’s also a NASCAR fan, and he’s brought his mathematics and statistics skills to bear in the NASCAR handicapping game. The result: AccuPredict, an algorithm that uses traditional and loop data statistics to predict NASCAR driver finish positions. Continue reading
This post first went up back in March 2010. I’m re-posting it during this off week because it’s assertions remain valid. Hopefully it’ll stir up some discussion! —Jed Henson
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“Kevin Harvick has run well for the past three weeks, and that gives him momentum going into this weekend. Put him on your roster.”
I see recommendations like this in lots of fantasy NASCAR blogs, forums, and articles written by experts. Dan Beaver, a columnist for Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Auto Racing, seems especially smitten with momentum. Pretty much every race preview he writes for Yahoo!’s fantasy players contains recommendations based on driver momentum.
So, what’s this all about? Is there some sort of mysterious force at work that prolongs lucky streaks? Do drivers on a hot streak gain some sort of mental advantage over their competitors? Does success on one type of track beget success on another?
The Luck Factor
Let’s start with a simple game that does not have any human input. Say you flip a coin and it comes up heads five times in a row. On the sixth flip, does momentum make it more likely to come up heads again? Or less likely? Neither, of course. The odds are 50-50 every single time you flip the coin no matter what happened on the previous flips. In a pure, luck-based game with zero human input, momentum does not exist. Continue reading
This screenshot shows a portion of the article.
I recently stumbled across an online article that features a big list of clickable links to the Twitter accounts of a lot of NASCAR drivers and teams, and the Twitter accounts of bloggers/media, sponsors, NASCAR, racetracks, and various wives/girlfriends/family. If you’re into NASCAR and Twitter, it’s a good collection to visit just for fun. For fantasy NASCAR players and handicappers, I think there’s some value in checking driver accounts if you’re on the fence when evaluating a driver for a certain race.
For example, it was unclear how many laps Denny Hamlin would run at Phoenix this spring due to his recent knee surgery, or how effective he’d be in the car. Hamlin posted a few updates on Twitter suggesting his knee was bothering him a great deal, and that info was fairly valuable to fantasy NASCAR players debating whether to start him and handicappers debating whether to bet him.
The article appears on the site The Final Lap, and is titled 2010 NASCAR Twitter Guide Directory.
Here's a screenshot of part of today's post on IFantasyRace.com.
I just learned of a blog called IFantasyRace.com. Run by Ryan Rantz, the blog features Rantz’ own race previews and other prediction-related articles for NASCAR fantasy players, and each week he also compiles links to a bunch of race preview-type articles written by folks around the Internet (including yours truly). If you’re in the mood to do a lot of race-preview reading, check it out.
Here’s the link to the link-compilation he posted today: Fantasy NASCAR from Around the Net: Texas.
Over in the archive at FantasyNascarPreview.com, there’s a pretty good strategy article for Yahoo! Fantasy players. Titled “Yahoo! Fantasy NASCAR Strategy,” it first explains how the Yahoo! game works, then goes into some tips and strategy. I agree with most of the author’s points, and his section on Group B strategy is really good.
I do have a couple of quibbles, though. First, while I agree that we should look for situations in which we can save a big gun’s starts for his top tracks (e.g., Jimmie Johnson on 1.5 milers), I think we should temper our start-saving aggressiveness early in a season. At this point in the 2010 season, for example, the series has run on only one short-flat track (Martinsville), and it’s not quite clear yet that the big guns and duds from last year on short-flat tracks will also be big guns and duds on those tracks this year. I’d hate to aggressively save 2010 short-flat starts for a 2009 short-flat master only to discover later this year he’s no longer a short-flat master. Continue reading
ThatsRacin.com‘s Jim Utter ran an article yesterday on driver Paul Menard titled “For Paul Menard, Steady as He Goes.” Utter notes the success Menard has had in the 98 car so far in this young season following the purchase of his former organization, Yates Racing, by Richard Petty Motorsports (RPM) last year, and the switch by RPM to Fords.
For those of us in the Yahoo! Fantasy NASCAR League, this isn’t news. It’s been apparent for a few weeks now that Menard has offered top value in in Yahoo!’s Group C, along with teammate A.J. Allmendinger. The question is, why? Have Menard’s driving skills dramatically improved? Is he giving more effort this year?
No and no. Well, maybe his wheel-man skills and ability to work with his crew chief to improve the car have improved some, but not enough to explain his resurgence (he simply wasn’t that bad before), and as he says in Utter’s article, he’s always given 100%.
It’s simple: He’s driving much better equipment than he was last year. If you played the Yahoo! game in 2008, you may remember that Menard returned good value in Group C. In fact, he ran well enough that he was bumped up to Group B for 2009. For the 2009 season, though, Menard left the solid cars of Dale Earnhardt Inc. for the relatively slow machines at Yates Racing, and his crummy results got him demoted back to Group C. With RPM, he’s once again in solid cars, and his results show it.
I also think Utter missed the bigger story: the uptick of not just Paul Menard, but RPM. The organization has undergone many big changes recently—the Yates purchase, the merger with Gillett Evernham Motorsports, the switch to Fords—and so far in 2010, it appears the drivers flying the RPM flag are stronger now than any Petty driver in recent years. Kasey Kahne looks to be a consistent top 10 threat on the non short tracks, and Allmendinger and Menard should rate at least in the top 20 throughout the year. Elliott Sadler hasn’t impressed yet, but that doesn’t diminish RPM’s return to respectability.
Of course, RPM remains far below the Hendricks Motorsports powerhouse in the NASCAR Sprint Cup pecking order. RPM isn’t even on par yet with Roush Fenway Racing or Richard Childress Racing (which is enjoying its own resurgence). RPM has improved, however, and if that trend continues, the RPM drivers will write some interesting story lines on the track this year.
Yahoo! Fantasy Considerations
Group B
It’s looking like Kahne will return good value at a lot of tracks this year. Don’t start aggressively saving his allocations just yet—it’s still too early for that. But do think twice before burning his starts at Daytona and Talladega.
Elliott Sadler, on the other hand, hasn’t shown anything this year, and he hasn’t been on my radar screen for any of the races. Perhaps that will change, but for now he’s got a well-worn spot on my bench.
Group C
It seems likely Allmendinger and Menard will provide top value at just about all tracks this year, and the best part is, you have 18 starts between them so you don’t have to aggressively save their allocations (for now). As with Kahne, think twice before you run them at the restrictor-plate tracks, but other than that, ride those horses.
Here's Mark Garrow's page on ESPN SportsNation.
I’ve picked up another excellent info source from the forums over on FantasyNascarPreview.com: Mark Garrow at ESPN SportsNation Chats. According to his bio, Garrow has had a lengthy career reporting on NASCAR stretching back to 1984. Each week, he apparently starts a chat session a few hours before the NASCAR Sprint Cup race. He fields many questions from fantasy players looking for advice on their picks, and the kind of downright wacky stuff you get in live chat with the masses (e.g., “yo blondie will you marry me”).
But he also shares his crew chief notes during these chat sessions, and that’s the real treat for us fantasy players and handicappers. In Sunday’s session, I counted notes on 12 chiefs/teams/drivers, and each note typically quotes the chief’s opinion on not only their driver’s car, but which of the other cars he likes as well.
Click here to see last Sunday’s chat, and scroll down to his post at 10:38 AM to see the first crew chief note. I plan to head back there just prior to the upcoming race in Phoenix to see his notes before the green flag waves. If you’re having last-minute trouble picking between a couple drivers, Garrow’s crew chief notes might give you the info you need.
This is what the calculator looks like.
I was reading through the excellent Fantasy NASCAR Forum over on FantasyNascarPreview.com this week, and one forum member posted a link to a scoring calculator for the Yahoo! fantasy NASCAR league. If you’re like me, it takes way too long after a race for Yahoo! to tabulate and post all our scores, and with this nifty online calculator you can calculate your point total as soon as you know your drivers’ finishing position. You could also use it to run “what if” scenarios (e.g., “What if Johnson didn’t run out of gas and finished 2nd instead of 22nd?”).
Find the calculator here: Yahoo! Fantasy NASCAR Racing Score Calculator
The 18 heads out for a run during testing yesterday at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Sprint Cup teams wrapped up their testing of the new spoiler this afternoon at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and while just how significant an impact it will have remains unknown, the general consensus seems to be that it won’t be a big impact. I’ve seen several informative articles on the topic, and I’ll list some of the better ones below:
“Spoiler Testing Underway at Charlotte Motor Speedway,” by Jim Utter at ThatsRacin.com;
“Johnson Not Worried About Spoiler,” by Jeff Owens at SceneDaily.com. Go to SceneDaily.com for a bunch more good stuff on the spoiler.
“Gordon: Spoiler Not a Big Change,” by Mike Hembree at SpeedTV.com;
“Drivers Take Spoiler for a Spin at Charlotte,” by David Newton at ESPN.com;
“Spoiler Impact Unpredictable,” by Mike Hembree at SpeedTV.com;
Note: I found most of these articles via Nascapper.com‘s NASCAR News forum.
