TMR Game – Week 15

Welcome to Week 15 of the Too Much Racing Game!

[picapp align=”right” wrap=”false” link=”term=IndyCar+Kansas&iid=8674920″ src=”3/3/e/6/Izod_IndyCar_Series_47d8.jpg?adImageId=12748393&imageId=8674920″ width=”380″ height=”190″ /]

I watched the IndyCar race using their online Race Control stream, I’m glad it worked for most of the race with only a few glitches, a big improvement – let’s see how it handles the much higher traffic for Indy! I thought it a strange decision to hold the race on Saturday afternoon though, clearly once again we are told just how important the series isn’t to ABC/ESPN. The race itself was pretty average but that’s fine, they can’t all be classics and aside from the lead two we had some different drivers up there to think about. Sato did very well for his first oval. Shame about the small crowd.
[Photo – ZumaPress, via Picapp]

This week we’ve got four events to look forward to so it is something of a busy week, and an opportunity to try different strategies!

Quick-Start

Racing this week:
Formula 1 – Spanish GP, Barcelona;
World Rally – Rally New Zealand;
Le Mans Series – 1000km of Spa;
Sprint Cup – Southern 500, Darlington;

Usual restrictions apply, pick up to 10 drivers, no more than 7 from one race.

The cutoff is Saturday 8th May at 4.59am BST (British Summer Time = GMT+1), that’s 11.59pm Friday night US EDT. (to be confirmed)

For the full results from Week 14, read on.

How To Enter

1. Reply to this post.

2. List up to 10 drivers, with no more than 7 from a single event.

3. Send your entry before the stated deadline, usually some time on a Friday. You can make as many changes as you like until the closing point, I’ll take your last entry.

Most weeks feature 2 or 3 races, some weeks may have more than that and some may only have one. There’s not a rule stating you have to choose a driver in each race, any combination of up to 10 drivers is accepted.

Further information can be found on the game sub-page which will be updated later in the week.

On to the results!

Top Tens – Week 14

Week 14 IndyCar Series NASCAR Cup
Points Kansas Talladega
1 50 Scott Dixon Kyle Busch
2 40 Dario Franchitti Jeff Gordon
3 35 Tony Kanaan Kevin Harvick
4 32 Helio Castroneves Jeff Burton
5 30 Ryan Hunter-Reay Carl Edwards
6 28 Ryan Briscoe Juan Montoya
7 26 Mario Moraes Martin Truex Jr
8 24 Alex Tagliani Ryan Newman
9 22 John Andretti Marcos Ambrose
10 20 Vitor Meira Jimmie Johnson

Ganassi are back on top in IndyCar now that we’re on the ovals again, and it was good to see Kanaan get a top three as well as some different names in the lower end of the top ten – including a good drive from a returning John Andretti in his first IndyCar drive for nearly a year.

Johnson’s 10th position in the Cup race will have cost a few players some points but since most people pick him every week it doesn’t really change all that much relative to each other. And did Ambrose really finish in the top ten outside a road course? Clearly I haven’t been paying attention!

Points Awarded – Week 14

Player IndyCar N-Cup Week 14
1 Sean 161 133 294
2 Pat W 180 112 292
3 James 172 112 284
4 Jon Waldock 142 130 272
5 Jackie 168 102 270
= The Speedgeek 215 55 270
7 Sebastian 202 67 269
8 RG 170 98 268
9 Startledbunny 132 130 262
10 Dank 0 150 150
11 Burwellian 0 120 120

Well done Sean! That’s two in a row, and also my second week in succession as runner-up. James finishes the ‘podium’ with a good score, with 4th to 9th come in practically together, just ten points apart! Burwellian missed the cutoff but did have five Cup drivers from last week, and Dank’s 7 are still rolling on from earlier.

A special mention to The Speedgeek for picking every one of the top six IndyCar drivers! Unfortunately your four Cup picks let you down but it was still a good achievement.

Overall Standings – Week 14

Pos Pre +/- Name Prior Wk 14 Total
1 1 0 Sebastian 3106 269 3375
2 2 0 Pat W 3072 292 3364
3 3 0 The Speedgeek 3045 270 3315
4 4 0 Sean 2987 294 3281
5 5 0 Jon Waldock 2941 272 3213
6 7 1 James 2904 284 3188
7 6 -1 RG 2911 268 3179
8 8 0 Burwellian 2794 120 2914
9 9 0 Startledbunny 2416 262 2678
10 10 0 Jackie 1662 270 1932
11 11 0 Dank 1417 150 1567

Sebastian remains in the lead though I am gaining on him, and Sean is working his way into it. There weren’t many changes this week what with the scoring being so close in the field.

The only position change was James taking 6th from RG. Burwellian didn’t lose a position but has fallen off the pack now, but there’s plenty of time for others to miss weeks too.

Full results sheets will be available on the TMR drop.io shortly, the Total Driver page on the Data file won’t have been updated but it isn’t essential.

Week 15

This week we have four events to choose from.

Le Mans Series – The 1000km of Spa-Franchorchamps sees the first entry into the 2010 LMS of the works Audi and Peugeot teams as a warm-up for Le Mans, and they are here in force with 4 908s (3 works, 1 ORECA-run) and 3 R15s. It’ll be hard to choose your drivers from this line-up, and with a field of 51 cars the traffic could surprise any of them. You can see the drivers in this race on this page of the official site.

Formula 1 – The return to Europe signifies a raft of updates to most of the cars, could it see a change of order? The Circuit de Catalunya doesn’t usually provide a great GP but the long-range forecast is for yet another rain-affected race which could mix things up a bit. www.f1.com

NASCAR Cup – The notoriously tricky Darlington track is host to the Southern 500, a long race on a 1.36 mile oval. www.nascar.com

WRC – The rally cars head down under to New Zealand, the notable exception being Mr Raikkonen who for reasons not known to me is skipping this one, despite teammate Ogier attending. This is a fast gravel rally. Timing will be at www.wrc.com and the entry list is on the Rally NZ site.

I think that’s everything, any questions just ask in the comments, and good luck!

16 thoughts on “TMR Game – Week 15”

  1. Congratulations to Sean for winning two weeks running with the strategy of not picking Jimmie Johnson.

    Cripes, it is getting close. James, Pat, Jon and The Speedgeek have beaten me three weeks running and Sean two weeks running, with both being wins therefore bigger margins. I hope this selection does better for me.

    LMS:

    Rinaldo Capello
    Allan McNish
    Tom Kristensen
    Nicholas Manassian
    Franck Montagny
    Anthony Davidson
    Alexander Wurz

    WRC:

    Sebastien Loeb
    Mikko Hirvonen

    Formula One:

    Sebastien Vettel

    Like

  2. Formula 1

    Vettel
    Hamilton
    Button
    Alonso
    Massa

    World Rally

    Sebastian Loeb
    Sebastien Ogier
    Mikko Hirvonen

    Sprint Cup

    Jimmie Johnson

    Le Mans

    Anthony Davidson

    Like

  3. This suggestion is for next year, it being late in the day to mess with this year’s rules.

    An issue discussed before is the players missing entries problem. There has to be a deadline but the punishment of missing a week is very harsh, especially if a player has completely the wrong carry-overs. We all put effort into our selections but there remains a high possibility that the final results will be more shaped by weeks missed than selection skill.

    I suggested a minimum score which only received one (negative) response. Pat suggested dropping the three worst scores, which only received one (negative) response. I do not know about the rest of you but at least Pat and I seem to agree that some allowance might be made.

    Sorry, it is a variation on the minimum score suggestion I made before. My reckoning is if a player misses the deadline, they should have a bad week but not a truly dreadful week. My idea is the minimum score should be 75% of the worst score by a player with a full entry.

    Using this year as an example, Sean and I would get 75 points for missing the low-scoring week 1, and James would get 224 for missing week 8 when the regulars scored between 298 and 411 points. Burwellian gained 120 on his NASCAR carry-overs this week but would get 197 instead. These are still lousy scores equivalent to making absolutely terrible picks but not competition-wrecking scores.

    Another bonus would be to encourage late entrants. At the start of the F1 season, the competition spread under this scheme would have been 960 to 731 points for those that had not missed a week, 915 to 575 for those that had missed entries, and new entrants could have started with 509 points.

    Part of my proposal would be to scrap carry-overs as they are designed to help with missed entries, so week 11 Dank has points removed for exceeding the minimum score with his NASCAR picks. The two weeks it was NASCAR only, I am assuming carry-overs were deliberate and am counting them. This would be the resultant table (*missed at least one entry):

    3450 Sebastian*
    3412 James*
    3364 Pat W
    3356 Sean*
    3315 The Speedgeek
    3213 Jon Waldock
    3179 RG
    2991 Burwellian*
    2874 Startledbunny*
    2454 Jackie*
    2264 Dank*
    2018 new entrants

    (I realise this would increase my lead but I would feel safer long-term with Pat 11 behind than James 38 behind.)

    I am not hugely optomistic about positive feedback for this being used next year. Altogether a bad idea or would 70% or 60% or 50% be better?

    Another idea is to replace carry-overs with a default selection. One might pick five NASCAR drivers plus five top drivers from other series that stand if a week’s entry is missed.

    Thoughts anyone? Any counter proposals?

    Like

  4. I didn’t pick Johnson at Talladega ’cause he kind of sucks at plate tracks given the number of wrecks he’s caused on them. I didn’t pick him at Richmond ’cause he’s been very inconsistent there. Plus I knew those who knew less about NASCAR would probably pick him every week and I could stand to gain from that… At Darlington, he’s a much, much better choice.

    F1

    Fernando Alonso
    Jenson Button
    Sebastian Vettel

    LMS

    Sébastian Bourdais
    Allan McNish
    Franck Montagny

    WRC

    Sébastien Loeb
    Petter Solberg

    NASCAR

    Jeff Gordon
    Jimmie Johnson

    Like

  5. My instant reaction was “no way!” but after a few minutes of thought, I kind of like it. I’d go with a lower number, though, maybe 50% of the lowest player with a full entry. In an occasion that the top team scored 400 points and the lowest full team for that week scored 320, if you had it at 75%, the “non-entry” teams would get 240 points, which would not be a bad score for that week. 50% just feels more correct to me. It’s certainly a penalty for forgetting, but it’s not entirely crippling. Any other thoughts?

    Like

  6. NASCAR
    Jeff Gordon

    F1
    Jenson Button
    Lewis Hamilton
    Sebastian Vettel

    WRC
    Petter Solberg
    Mikko Hirvonen

    LMS
    Allan McNisch
    Tom Kristensen
    Nicolas Minassian
    Stephane Sarrazin

    Like

  7. I am glad of some positive reaction. Cheers.

    We have had a couple of weeks when the score spread is approximately 300 to 400 points. I would argue that in such a week, 300 is a bad score and 225 as the minimum a very bad score. Emphasis on selection, not attendence.

    The average spread of scores amongst full teams is 88. 75 to 175 will take some making up. Probably about ten to thirteen weeks based on Sean and I working up from a 120ish deficit and James’s progress after losing 300 to 400 points and scoring heavily since.

    Actually, I do think 75% is just a bit high but doing the calculations I did not really want to start again. The other thing is how badly, or not so badly, the worst full team did made too much difference. Some percentage of the average full-team score would be better.

    Like

  8. F1
    Fernando Alonso
    Jenson Button
    Lewis Hamilton

    LMS
    Anthony Davidson
    Allan McNish
    Tom Kristensen

    WRC
    Seb Loeb
    Mikko Hirvonen

    Nascar
    Kevin Harvick
    Jimmie Johnson

    Like

  9. I’m not sure what I think at the moment. I read this during the day and I’ve read it again tonight and now it is late during the election coverage and I can’t think straight, but I wanted to put in a reply to say I’m thinking on it.

    Like

  11. And I’m quite blunt when I’m tired and often when I’m not. 🙂

    The idea has merit but I see the potential for people saying during the year that the percentage is arbitrary and needs changing one way or another. Bit like equivalency formulas in GT or WTCC.

    But it is better than carryovers – I used that because it works in other games but here it only works for back-to-back races in one series (pretty much just NASCAR, most of the time).

    Like

  12. Better get this in before I forget…

    F1:
    Sebastian Vettel

    WRC:
    Sebastien Loeb

    LMS:
    Marc Gene
    Alexander Wurz
    Anthony Davidson
    Franck Montagny
    Stephane Sarrazin
    Nicolas Minassian
    Allan McNish

    NASCAR Cup:
    Kurt Busch

    Like

  13. LMS
    Simon Pagenaud
    Pedro Lamy (nobody ever picks Pedro Lamy!)
    Anthony Davidson
    Alex Wurz
    Nic Minassian
    Allan McNish

    F1
    Sebastian Vettel
    Mark Webber

    WRC
    Sebastien Loeb
    Mikko Hirvonen

    I’m taking the strategic decision to skip Cup, my knowledge base isn’t there and there are lots of points available elsewhere.

    Like

  14. Right,

    LMS

    Capello
    Kristiansen
    Gene

    F1

    Nico Rosberg
    Jenson Button
    Seb Vettel
    Lewis Hamilton

    WRC

    Seb Ogier
    Seb Loeb
    Mikko Hirvonen

    Like

  15. Election’s pretty much got me burnt out, hence lack of entry last week and late entries in other weeks lately. I am still interested, honest!

    I’ve not been keeping track of racing news the past week or two, I’m too tired to think straight after a gruelling week on doorsteps… Thus;

    F1
    Sebastien Vettel
    Jenson Button
    Lewis Hamilton
    Fernando Alonso
    Felipe Massa

    …and whatever my 5 Cup carryovers were please?

    Like

Comments are closed.