Welcome to Week 19 of the Too Much Racing Game!
I hope you enjoyed this fantastic weekend of racing, I certainly did! It was a tense F1 race in Turkey with an all-out battle between the current fastest two teams, ending in tears for one of them – I wonder if this is the tipping point for McLaren to take the lead, or if Red Bull will douse any flames?
This was followed by an excellent Indy 500, spoiled a little by poor TV and online coverage. It took a while to get going due to several caution periods, and then developed into one of the most tense and on-edge fuel strategy races I’ve seen in a long time. It was all building to crescendo when Conway’s crash happened on the final lap, and all thoughts of the race evaporated as we thought of his safety. Thankfully he’s safe with just a broken bone, it could have been far worse. Very lucky.
Speedgeek was at the 500 and he has some pre-race updates on his blog – I hope you’ll have a race report at some stage?
I didn’t see the Cup race, it was getting late and my eyes were hurting after staring at screens during the previous two races! I don’t think I could’ve stomached Fox’s ads after the copious commercials on the ABC feed. I also missed the WRC recap show as it was on during the 500.
Quick-Start
Racing this week:
IZOD IndyCar – Texas 550k;
NASCAR Sprint Cup – Pocono;
DTM – Lausitzring;
Usual restrictions apply, pick up to 10 drivers, no more than 7 from one race.
The cutoff is Saturday 5th June at 4.59am BST (British Summer Time = GMT+1), that’s 11.59pm Friday night US EDT.
For the full results from Week 18, 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. 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.
On to the results!
Top Tens – Week 18
| Week 18 | IndyCar | Formula 1 | |
| Points | Indianapolis 500 | Turkish GP | |
| 1 | 50 | Dario Franchitti | Lewis Hamilton |
| 2 | 40 | Dan Wheldon | Jenson Button |
| 3 | 35 | Marco Andretti | Mark Webber |
| 4 | 32 | Alex Lloyd | Michael Schumacher |
| 5 | 30 | Scott Dixon | Nico Rosberg |
| 6 | 28 | Danica Patrick | Robert Kubica |
| 7 | 26 | Justin Wilson | Felipe Massa |
| 8 | 24 | Will Power | Fernando Alonso |
| 9 | 22 | Helio Castroneves | Adrian Sutil |
| 10 | 20 | Alex Tagliani | Kamui Kobayashi |
| NASCAR Cup | WRC | ||
| Points | Coca-Cola 600 | Rally Portugal | |
| 1 | 50 | Kurt Busch | Sebastien Ogier |
| 2 | 40 | Jamie McMurray | Sebastien Loeb |
| 3 | 35 | Kyle Busch | Dani Sordo |
| 4 | 32 | Mark Martin | Mikko Hirvonen |
| 5 | 30 | David Reutimann | Petter Solberg |
| 6 | 28 | Jeff Gordon | Matthew Wilson |
| 7 | 26 | Clint Bowyer | Mads Ostberg |
| 8 | 24 | Paul Menard | Federico Villagara |
| 9 | 22 | Ryan Newman | Khalid al-Qassimi |
| 10 | 20 | Matt Kenseth | Kimi Raikkonen |
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Quite mixed up results in all four events! Most of us chose the Red Bull F1 drivers, Loeb, and some combination of Ganassi and Penske IndyCar drivers. Many of us were hit by some of the fancied Cup runners hitting trouble, with those going with either Busch brother being rewarded.
Points Awarded – Week 18
| Player | F1 | IndyCar | N-Cup | WRC | Week 18 |
| Startledbunny | 71 | 96 | 19 | 122 | 308 |
| Sebastian | 67 | 102 | – | 122 | 291 |
| Pat W | 69 | 126 | 12 | 72 | 279 |
| The Speedgeek | 43 | 132 | 62 | 40 | 277 |
| RG | 99 | 52 | 35 | 90 | 276 |
| Jackie | 117 | 46 | 36 | 72 | 271 |
| Jon Waldock | 107 | 96 | 20 | 40 | 263 |
| Sean | 67 | 102 | 48 | 40 | 257 |
| Burwellian | 175 | – | 69 | – | 244 |
| Dank | – | – | 76 | – | 76 |
| James | – | – | – | – | 0 |
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Congratulations Startledbunny! It was a fairly tight week and getting 40 pts more than the main pack is a good score. Game leader Sebastian scores well too, and mine isn’t too bad – in fact I pulled off the feat of scoring identically to last week using completely different racing series.
Unfortunately I didn’t receive entries from Burwellian or James, though I did send a reminder on Friday. If I don’t have an entry from you by Friday afternoon/evening I’ll now attempt to send a reminder by email, tweet or message elsewhere. Don’t take it personally, I’m aware not everyone has time to enter weekly. I’m electing not to remind Dank as he’s miles behind now, though of course always welcome to re-enter in future.
Overall Standings – Week 18
| Pos | Pre | +/- | Name | Prior | Wk 18 | Total | Gap |
| 1 | 1 | 0 | Sebastian | 4342 | 291 | 4633 | 0 |
| 2 | 2 | 0 | The Speedgeek | 4300 | 277 | 4577 | 56 |
| 3 | 3 | 0 | Pat W | 4259 | 279 | 4538 | 95 |
| 4 | 4 | 0 | Sean | 4171 | 257 | 4428 | 205 |
| 5 | 5 | 0 | RG | 4056 | 276 | 4332 | 301 |
| 6 | 7 | 1 | Jon Waldock | 4040 | 263 | 4303 | 330 |
| 7 | 6 | -1 | James | 4052 | 0 | 4052 | 581 |
| 8 | 8 | 0 | Startledbunny | 3529 | 308 | 3837 | 796 |
| 9 | 9 | 0 | Burwellian | 3408 | 244 | 3652 | 981 |
| 10 | 10 | 0 | Jackie | 2476 | 271 | 2747 | 1886 |
| 11 | 11 | 0 | Dank | 1795 | 76 | 1871 | 2762 |
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Sebastian’s lead is opened out a little further, but Speedgeek and I are still in contention. Sean is also within a realistic striking distance, and of course any of us many falter later in the year.
Jon retakes 6th position ahead of James.
Full results sheets are available on the TMR drop.io, which I believe is now fully updated on all tabs, and includes Cup points penalties from earlier in the year (which does not affect any players).
Coming Up – Week 19
This week we have three events:
IndyCar – After the big race of the year the teams and drivers are immediately back into the rest of the schedule with this 550km race at Texas Motor Speedway, a very fast 1.5 mile oval. Go to indycar.com for more info.
DTM – The Audi vs Mercedes battle reconvenes on the road course layout of the Eurospeedway Lausitz in Germany. Go to dtm.com for more info (don’t worry, I have linked the English version!).
Sprint Cup – This week it is the long and bumpy Pocono oval. Go to nascar.com for more info.
I think that’s everything, any questions just ask in the comments, good luck and enjoy one of the best motorsport weekends of the whole year!
I Watch Too Much Racing 
I seem to be doing a bit better of late and am up towards the middle of the pack for each weeks’ events… just a shame that I missed a few weeks early on but it’s fun to see I’m making improvements nevertheless. One of these weeks I’ll manage to breakthrough the 300 barrier!
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It is relative scores that count. We have had weeks when 300 was a poor score and weeks when 300 would have been impossible. Do stick with it. Maybe keep a total for the weeks you enter to see how you are doing against the field. Generally, solid picks will get reasonable results but winning a week is more to do with luck. If Johnson had finished top-two on Sunday, as he does more than most, you would have won the week with the extra points, being otherwise ahead of Jon and Sean who also picked him. As it is, the three of you had a bad week because Johnston is a solid pick who did badly. That is the way it goes. I would suggest entering earlier in the week, even if a provisional entry to be fine-tuned later, as it is easy to forget on a Friday.
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Well done Startledbunny.
With so much overlap in selections, I only had between three and five different drivers to each of the other seven sets of picks to create relative performance. So when on Saturday, Latvala, who only I picked, hit a tree, I thought I was screwed. So I am very pleased to finish second. I got lucky, NASCAR provided a mixed up result, Ogier got around to winning, Briscoe had a bad day, and the McLaren drivers were only picked once each. Phew!
Yes, I do take this far too seriously. Sorry to see James miss a selection. Factoring out the three weeks either he or I missed, he is twelve points up on me (3931 against 3943). (I hope we see Burwellian back as well but at least he got a reasonable haul of points.)
DTM:
Timo Scheider
Gary Paffett
Mattias Ekström
Paul di Resta
Bruno Spengler
IRL:
Dario Franchitti
Scott Dixon
Ryan Briscoe
Helio Castroneves
NASCAR:
Denny Hamlin
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INDYCAR
Will Power
Dario Franchitti
Ryan Hunter-Reay
Scott Dixon
Helio Castroneves
NASCAR
Kyle Busch
Jimmie Johnson
Matt Kenseth
DTM
Bruno Spengler
Gary Paffett
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Here is a PDF for the IndyCar entry list, should you be crazy enough not to pick Ganassi or Penske: http://www.indycar.com/var/assets/TMSEntryList6-1-2010.pdf
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Keep plugging away, the scores are going up.
Sebastian is right about the relative scores, my own scores are a case in point. I had 279 for two weeks running and this week it was 3rd-best, but last week it was only good for 7th. It is so easy to drop back just because a fancied driver has a bad week.
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I was surprised at the similar picks, I thought people would take the opportunity of having four events to try something wildly different.
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It was more samey (is that a word?) than previous weeks with similar selection situations, but firstly, we have had more season to evaluate the form on the drivers within series, and secondly, with trial and error, learnt a bit more about splitting the choices between series. It seems to me that there were only the four obvious picks in WRC (everyone else thought three), five in IRL, and F1 is clearer (although that seemed to provide the most variety). It was very surprising only five NASCAR drivers got picked. Looking at the Sprint Cup points-table before Charlotte, they just happen to be the five drivers in the top-nine that have won Sprint Cup rounds. This field is getting sassy.
I can not see the mileage in being radical. It might increase the chance of a weekly win but percentage choices surely have to be the long strategy? Makes it a subtle game.
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IndyCar: Ryan Briscoe, Hélio Castroneves, Scott Dixon, Dario Franchitti
NASCAR: Kurt Busch, Jeff Gordon, Denny Hamlin
DTM: Mattias Ekström, Gary Paffett, Bruno Spengler
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IndyCar: Helio Castroneves, Dario Franchitti, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Will Power
DTM: Paul di Resta, Gary Paffett, Bruno Spengler, Mattias Ekstrom, Timo Schneider
NASCAR: Kyle Busch
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DTM
Gary Paffett
Paul di Resta
Timo Scheider
IndyCar
Dario Franchitti
Helio Castroneves
Will Power
Scott Dixon
NASCAR
Kyle Busch
Jimmie Johnson
Denny Hamlin
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IndyCar
Dario Franchitti
Scott Dixon
Will Power
Tomas Scheckter
DTM
Mattias Ekstrom
Timo Scheider
Bruno Spengler
Cup
Jimmie Johnson
Denny Hamlin
Kurt Busch
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This is normally true, except this was the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 and both are races where drivers you’d find in the middle order sometimes find themselves finishing well. The risk was high though.
I’m expecting a tough choice next week for Le Mans, there are a lot of good drivers in good cars.
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Nascar
Kevin Harvick
Kyle Busch
Matt Kenseth
Jeff Gordon
IndyCar
Dario Franchitti
Scott Dixon
Will Power
DTM
Bruno Spengler
Mattias Ekstrom
Gary Paffett
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Buggeration!
Sorry Pat & co, missed the dealine again.
Still never above have a cheeky go.
INdy
Castroneves
Dixon
Kanaan
Briscoe
DTM
SPengler
Ekstrom
Paffett
Schieder
NASCAR
Tony STewart
Denny Hamlin
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