NASCAR qualifying questions

[SiteWolf]

So the last couple seasons, qualifying has not been remotely 'normal' (whatever normal is anymore)....projections last year from the year before were largely moot because there were only a handful all season.

Now I'm realizing they're going back to normal every week qualifying....yeah! HOWEVER, because there was so little qualifying last season, current projections reflect that...........and virtually everyone has the same projection of 3, with only 3 exceptions that are higher.

So the initial question, then, is.....are we OK with that? Let it run that way despite the fact almost everyone has the same projection? And IF we were to change it, ideas on how to come up with 'logical' edits? Only one I'd have is to compile top 5 starts from last year, but that might be a bit skewed since they used, what, owner points all last year?

Of course if I REALLY had my druthers (wth is a druther? mashup of I'd rather?) EVERY driver racing a particular week would get a qualifying divi...but it would be based on qualifying position vs average qualifying position. I'd do the work to get there, but would have to think thru what programming it would take.

[SiteWolf]

So, in looking over all starts from last year, this is what the numbers say.......each driver's starting position and the number of times they started in the top 5........again, somewhat skewed because of how they determined starting positions last year.

Driver Avg start Top 5 starts
Kyle Larson 6 22
Denny Hamlin 6 19
William Byron 9 18
Chase Elliott 8 16
Martin Truex Jr. 9 16
Joey Logano 9 12
Kevin Harvick 10 11
Kyle Busch 11 11
Ryan Blaney 10 10
Brad Keselowski 11 7
Christopher Bell 12 6
Kurt Busch 15 4
Michael McDowell 17 4
Alex Bowman 14 3
Aric Almirola 19 3
Austin Cindric 25 2
Austin Dillon 16 2
Matt DiBenedetto 18 2
Tyler Reddick 16 2
AJ Allmendinger 17 1
Chase Briscoe 22 1
Chris Buescher 18 1
Daniel Suarez 20 1
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 18 1
B.J. McLeod 32 0
Bubba Wallace 20 0
Cody Ware 32 0
Cole Custer 22 0
Corey LaJoie 27 0
David Ragan 18 0
Erik Jones 23 0
Harrison Burton 39 0
J.J. Yeley 34 0
Jamie McMurray 19 0
Josh Bilicki 34 0
Justin Allgaier 30 0
Justin Haley 29 0
Landon Cassill 40 0
Ross Chastain 20 0
Ryan Newman 23 0
Ryan Preece 24 0
Ty Dillon 37 0

If a driver isn't listed, they had no starts last year.

[rich76]

This is a real dilemma......I just don't see how you can give them qual projections off of how the starting grids were determined last year. I'll have to think about this for a bit. I'm almost of the position that tweaking qual projections off of the previous year (with some tweaks) would be fairer. Just not sure........

[SiteWolf]

Well, one 'easy fix' might be just to set the max at 12 or something and use starts
Remember, whatever it is we do (nothing or something), projections would be updated midseason, eliminating the quandry.