The official DragInsights Power Rankings thread

[Ellis V Buth]

Originally Posted by Mark Yacavone

ELLIS, I'm not laughing here. I'm glad somebody is.


How about Nat'l winners>

Bob Broadbent
Dave Casey
Barry Parker
Dean Cook
Vinny Barone
John Shaul
Michael Iacono
Who am I missing?
Oh yeah, last year's winner John Gray

I WILL get a big laugh if one of these guys gets to the final ;-)

I do get what you're saying...and I certainly never count anyone out. I don't have access to whatever algorithm they are using to come up with this stuff. Maybe it still needs work...or maybe there is something statistically that makes some of them not get into the "Top 10" for some reason but anytime you make a list and limit it to 10 people...it is likely that some names get left off.

The list you gave is definitely a group of racers that I look up to and make sure I bring my "A game" when I stage up against them...

[Dan Bennett]

I'm getting ready to dive into a foxhole, but my opinion is that some people are not understanding what the reports are about.

Not the best analogy, but I've never seen any racer be offended by being left off the Tricky Tipster list. That was simply one person's (who changed over time) gut feeling considering performance levels, recent wins, and driving ability. The list here simply takes that from a gut feeling to a more specific analysis.

I may be leaving some things out, but what gets you on the list is a number of things: recent reaction times, ability to run under the index, past success at a given track, ability to drive the stripe, and performance in eliminations so far this year.

If you're being honest, those are the same things most racers would consider as they dial their car and plan their race.

Being able to put numbers on things is much more accurate than gut feelings. In the days before 60' clocks, you'd hear about one car hooking better than the other. But when we got numbers, sometimes it was a case of a slower 60 but a better reaction.

So they're looking at a lot of cold hard facts. And putting a rating on who is doing a better job. No, it is not 100% accurate since all of us have seen those occasions where the "impossible" or unlikely happens.

It's an argument for another day, but those that think statistical analysis is not needed in drag racing probably should yank the data systems out of their cars and ask the track operator to shut off the clocks and just leave the win light.

[jmcarter]

I’m in the hole with you Dan. Know Alicia and Rusty (RIP) were formulating a plan to roll out this tool years ago and kudos to her for providing this resource. Don’t know the algorithm and while some anomalies such as Keith’s omission will no doubt be corrected by her in the near term it would behoove folks to use the data points provided to augment your strategy. Just looking at how analytics has changed baseball is a perfect example of winners using every tool available.