Toyota — Save Mart 350 Projections, Part II
Well, that program isn’t going to finish. I added a little code that slowed the program down, and with only one day between qualifying and race day instead of two, I didn’t have time for the slower program to finish running — it’s about halfway done making finishing and laps led projections for the field. I’m going to see if I can speed it up in the future.
In the absence of a model, I thought I’d share a few numbers that could be important today.
20.5
The average (mean) number of positions that Patrick Carpentier finishes ahead of his starting position when racing at Sonoma in NASCAR’s elite series.
Patrick Carpentier is probably an unfamiliar name to some race fans. He doesn’t race with the series regularly, but he is a road racing specialist. Like Boris Said, Marcus Ambrose, Ron Fellows and others in the past, Carpentier has been hired to try to work magic for an underfunded, typically non-competitive team. Don’t let his 34th place starting position fool you — he’ll start from the back of the pack and work his way up through the field if he can avoid wrecks.
11
Danica Patrick’s starting position.
This was Danica’s season-best qualifying effort thus far. While Danica has road racing experience from her open-wheel racing Indycar days, she has struggled to adapt to stock car racing on a road course. Patrick practiced well and was able to follow it up with a solid qualifying run, but her starting position could hurt you if she drops back in the field. She’s an interesting pick this week, but also a risky one.
8.60
Clint Bowyer’s lifetime average finishing position in 10 starts at Sonoma. Bowyer leads all active drivers in this statistic.
To add some context, Tony Stewart is currently second-best on that list with an average finishing position of 12.41 in 17 races. Stewart (1st) and Bowyer (2nd) also share the top two finishing positions among active drivers at Watkins Glen, NASCAR’s other road course. Carl Edwards, with a similar number of starts (11), is in 11th place overall (16.45 average finish) at Sonoma. Matt Kenseth — normally a solid bet — sits all the way down in 27th place overall (22.06 average finish) with his 16 starts at Sonoma. Bowyer qualified 18th for the race today. He’s a solid pick and will face fewer challenges than Carpentier as he works his way through the field.
100
The percentage of races that Martin Truex Jr.’s team has shown up ready to win this season.
Keep an eye on Truex today. He qualified third and has won at Sonoma before. He knows how to drive road courses. His team is peaking at the right time and he remains a consistent threat this season. Barring any unforeseen issues, Truex should remain near the front of the pack today.
14, 27, 31, 42, 47
Cars you shouldn’t count out today.
Even though they’ve had mixed results throughout the season, road courses are a completely different story. Each of these drivers can win here.
50–50
The chances of Kyle Busch or Dale Jr. having another disappointing day at the track.
These guys really should be on the list of cars that you shouldn’t count out, but they haven’t been able to get it done on the track lately. Mechanical failures, poor qualifying efforts, human error, and dumb luck have dogged these two teams this year. The drivers have the talent to dominate. The teams have the equipment to dominate. They are not dominating, and their performance does not justify the high cost in a salary cap game.
They will rebound, but I’m not convinced that will start this week.
Good luck, everyone!
I’ve got my picks in and hope to follow up last week’s strong PGA performance with more DFS success in NASCAR after the break. See you on the track.
