TMR Game – Week 4

Welcome to Week 4 of the Too Much Racing Game!

It is not too late to join in, the big scoring hasn’t started yet!

This post contains a summary of how to enter for Week 4, the results from Week 3, and a few notes about Week 4’s racing.

Quick-Start

If you are short on time and want to cut straight to it, just reply to this post with your picks for this weekend’s racing. There is only one race this week and that’s NASCAR at Fontana. This means I can be flexible with the deadline a little so let’s make it Friday 19th February at 11.59pm GMT. That’s 6.59pm US Eastern. As there’s only one race you may only pick 7 drivers. Best of luck!

For those who want more detail, read on.

New?

If you are new to the game, it is simply this:  Make a weekly pick of up to 10 drivers from a mix of racing series.

You might be a specialist in one championship and know nothing about the others – it doesn’t matter.
You might know a small amount about lots of series – it doesn’t matter. Or you might be a racing geek like me.
If following several series isn’t for you, how about setting yourself the challenge of only playing with F1 and ex-F1 drivers, or ex-IndyCar, or whatever else?

The game is just for fun, to see what would happen if you created a ‘pickem’ style game with lots of races, and is my way of spreading a little bit of knowledge of the racing world. Most of us when asked can name one rally driver, one IndyCar driver, one NASCAR driver, one sportscar driver – even if we know nothing else about the series. You’d be surprised how much you do know.

Don’t worry if you didn’t enter the first few weeks – score well and you’ll be in the pack in no time. Or just play for fun! This week and next week only feature a single event so at first you may not close in, be aware though, when more events appear there will be a big opportunity to make some gains.

How To Enter

1. Reply to this post.

2. List up to 10 drivers, with no more than 7 from a single event. In weeks with only one event you may only pick a total of 7 drivers. If you pick 8 or more for one event, I will take your first 7.

3. Send your entry before the stated deadline, usually some time on a Friday.

That’s it!

Game News

I am likely to retain the midnight closing time as the regular cut-off, the exception being weeks with WRC rounds which hold a full day’s running on a Friday. Please note for future weeks if this post has not appeared and you’re unable to wait you can email me your picks and I will publish them here.

I’ve added the event schedule to the Game sub-page, so now you can check out what’s happening in future weeks if you want to plan ahead. I will shortly update that page with the current results.

Week 3 – Results

Here are the scores from Week 3, which covered the NASCAR Daytona 500 and the WRC Rally Sweden.

	Player	NASCAR	WRC	Week 3
1	RG	121	180	301
2	James	119	153	272
3	Dank	39	218	257
4	Sebastian	23	216	239
5	The Speedgeek	44	189	233
6	Burwellian	73	159	232
7	Sean	37	190	227
8	Pat W	87	121	208
9	Jon Waldock	33	153	186
10	Startledbunny	21		21
11	Jackie	20		20

Well done to RG, who remains unbeaten! You were the only player to have every one of their drivers score double-figures.

Sean commented last week that WRC drivers was the way to go because anything could happen on a restrictor plate oval, and he was proven correct – nearly all of the top NASCAR picks were low-scorers while almost all of the top WRC drivers placed well.

Note that Startledbunny and Jackie both picked up  ‘carryover’ scores as they’d picked Juan Montoya for the Daytona 24 Hours and their entries rolled forward into the 500. Jimmie Johnson gave SB an extra point. I will score any carryovers regardless of whether they change series, the exception being if they race in two events in one week in which case you must nominate one (no nomination means I’ll score them in their ‘regular’ series/event).

Overall Standings:

Pos	+/-	Name	Prior	Wk 3	Total
1	1	RG	143	301	444
2	6	James	109	272	381
3	5	Dank	118	257	375
4	3	The Speedgeek	133	233	366
5	2	Pat W	134	208	342
6	7	Burwellian	106	232	338
7	8	Jon Waldock	105	186	291
8	10	Sebastian	0	239	239
9	11	Sean	0	227	227
10	4	Startledbunny	121	21	142
11	9	Jackie	99	20	119

EDIT – this is an updated table, thanks Sean

RG extends hislead, and well done to James and Dank for moving into the top three.

New players Sebastian and Sean enter the game in 8th and 9th, ahead of Startledbunny and Jackie (who didn’t enter) by virtue of their being two races this week compared to only one when they entered.

There isn’t much else to read into the table at this early stage.

Week 4 – Races

There is only one race this week, that is NASCAR Sprint Cup’s Auto Club 500 held at Auto Club Speedway (formerly California Speedway) in Fontana, California. It is another restrictor plate superspeedway so again is something of a lottery, it is impossible to say whether we’ll see high scores or low so I guess that’s a licence to be creative with your picks! How lucky do you feel?

Here is the entry list for this race. Note there are 46 entries for 43 grid spots so you may want to look at the points to get a rough idea, but as I say, superspeedway so anything can happen and anyone can be involved in near-inevitable ‘Big One’.

Good luck!