How can this be fixed? (1 Viewer)

[indidad- The Guy- Uncle Steve]

Just sitting here thinking, now that NHRA has created this mess with diving for the countdown, what could fix it?
The one idea I keep coming up with would be to reward a team for not diving in the last X amount of races before the countdown. For example, last Monday if John would have won he gets a $ bonus and/or extra points to begin the countdown.
I realize this puts multi-car teams at an unfair advantage to receive bonuses, but it's got to be better than what happened Monday.
I guess just to know if an owner makes the decision, it's not all a win-win. Someone on the team has to give something up.
Maybe there is also a way to reward the single car teams as well. Thoughts?

 

[George.]

Just sitting here thinking, now that NHRA has created this mess with diving for the countdown, what could fix it?
The one idea I keep coming up with would be to reward a team for not diving in the last X amount of races before the countdown. For example, last Monday if John would have won he gets a $ bonus and/or extra points to begin the countdown.
I realize this puts multi-car teams at an unfair advantage to receive bonuses, but it's got to be better than what happened Monday.
I guess just to know if an owner makes the decision, it's not all a win-win. Someone on the team has to give something up.
Maybe there is also a way to reward the single car teams as well. Thoughts?

How about crowning the true champion the old fashioned way by giving the big check to the guy who earned the most points during the season.
The countdown in drag racing is a joke and an embarrassment.

 

[d'kid]

Get rid of the "No Diving Rule" where ever it might be (it's NOT in the rule book that I can find). Dives have always happen at needed times, as long as I've been around the game, and not just at the 'top level'. Some of the most memorial dives or lack there of were Minor vs Beck, several times in one season. Those got to the point of being 'stupid funny'

Some of us just don't look at the world through 'Rose Coloured Glasses', it happens, always has, and somehow, always will, multi-car teams or not.
You ever play Spades or Hearts? Ever throw out a bullet off suit so your partner could make bid?

I do two things in the stands at a National event, watch the sportsman race, and watch the Pro Show...

but, K'dubs put it best to me last night, and by the way he isn't a fan... Dad, why the 'heck' does drag racing need a play-off... they only race 24 times a year, against the same teams, your whole damn year is a play-off..."

d'kid

 

[bukweet]

The Countdown is, as we all know a copycat of a NASCAR program.
So is the COT concept and probably several other things I just can't think of yet(only one cup of coffee so far).
When the leadership (I know, I know) of NHRA realizes that the system wasn't broken and Drag Racing doesn't need to be like NASCAR to build interest and TV time, maybe they could just put it back like it was and take care of it.
Yep, they would have to admit they made a mistake.
So do it, fix it and make it what it was.
The one with the most points wins,
This isn't "No Child Left Behind".

 

[John Farce Racing]

OK, I've been trying to thing of ways to fix this for a while. Here are a few(probably stupid) ideas I've come up with.

1. When team cars race, award no points for that round of racing.

2. When team cars race, split the points. Each team gets 10 points no matter the outcome.

3. This one just came to me last night. Run the full schedule just like now.
However award points at say, only 16 of the races(this number could be tweaked a little). Have a neutral 3rd party like they have for contests randomly pick the events that count after the season is over. This way "teams" wouldn't know when to dive since it might not help if the event isn't drawn at the end of the year. Single team cars and teams that race straight up would never have to worry about this.

I know there are flaws in these ideas so go ahead and pick them apart. The system in place today is flawed too, so don't be too hard on me!

 

[haagar]

Ditch the no dive rule (if it really exists). Ditch the Countdown. The team (and by that I mean single car and driver combo) that wins the most races wins the championship.

There isn't anything that can really be done to eliminate dives even if you eliminate multi-car teams and all eliminating multi-car teams will do is lower the car count.

 

[big guy]

Larry Morgan said it best (YOU CAN`T FIX STUPID)

 

[Nunz]

No way to fix it, it's just part of the landscape. There will never be a way to know 100% when a dive takes place between team cars, and guess what? At the beginning of a season, two teams could form an alliance, such as Wilk & Tasca, but have it be totally confidential, so know one would ever know if one was diving for the other. I'm sure this happens to some extent between racers where one is leasing an engine from the other. Too many scenarios, too many variables, too convoluded to try and police, IMO.

 

[Billy]

The rule which prohibits the implementation of team orders is unenforceable. There's is no reasonable or rational method of determining whether a run was intentionally given away or was the result of one of an innumerable list of factors out of anyone's control.

In my opinion, there is only one way to remove team orders from the equation. Get every multi-car team owner to sit down in a room, draw up an agreement which clearly and unequivocally states that under no circumstances will a team tamper with the potential outcome of any round of racing in eliminations. You have now placed the team owners in a position of having to abide by an agreement--not an unenforceable rule--which will call their integrity and honestly into question should anything even remotely suspicious happen when two of their team cars race.

Possible downsides? Only the one that exists now, and that is the negative response from those fans unhappy with the use of team orders suspecting that something premeditated was employed in a crucial round involving two teammates. With this type of agreement in place, the teams police themselves and with their credibility on the line, they would make every effort to avoid any suspicion of breaking the agreement and receiving ugly PR.

There's only one problem. You'll never get the owners to sign it.

First, there will always be an element of distrust among the big-budget teams because the stakes are extremely high. The owners would be experiencing many a sleepless night wondering, "Hmmm, when so-and-so raced his teammate today, could the fix have been in and somehow they were able to cover their tracks..?" And what about a disgruntled crew member of a multi-car team spreading a rumor like, "Ya know, our guys went in the tank today in the second round....." just to gain a little revenge.

Secondly, the team owners know that at some point they will be faced with the choice of racing straight up or enacting team orders when their entire season is hanging in the balance. Take away that tactical tool which has existed for years and the risk of not having sufficient control of their own destiny is too great.

 

[.]

How about crowning the true champion the old fashioned way by giving the big check to the guy who earned the most points during the season.
The countdown in drag racing is a joke and an embarrassment.

I always thought the true "old fashioned way" of crowning the champ was winning the world finals. As long as we are going back, lets go all the way back.

 

[PJ]

There is no way to fix it nor is there anyway to police it. With the nhra already throwing out the integrity and meaning of a championship I guess acts like this just go along with it. I wish people running the show would understand that each decision is not made in a vacuum. Each action has ripple effects. Yes the countdown is a joke and does lead to the instances of this happening increasing, however to be fair dives have been around long before the clowndown was invented. However before, you may have a dive late in the season and with so few cars in the points battle the occurrence wasn't very often. Now with 2 cut offs (playoffs and the countdown winner) they have made 2 deadlines where these type of actions need to happen. Also with 10 teams in the playoffs and countless more fighting to get into that ten, they have not only made the need but the possibility and opportunity of these actions more likely to occur.

Will dropping the countdown end dives? no. But it would lessen the chances of it happening, I firmly believe so. As people have been talking here about dives, they talk about Force/Tped in the 90's, the DRS funny car about 5 years ago and Larry Minor/Gary Beck in the 80's. Since the countdown, in only its 3rd year, we have Cruz for Tony in year one, the Harley debacle last year and now Hight/Force this year.. Went from 3 in 3 decades to 3 straight years....and we're not done yet.

Eliminating multi car teams would lower car counts or just make secret arrangements then. Not allowing teams to score points on each others would not help either. All of a sudden Ashley, Robert, Capps, Jack and anyone else would now magically own their team.

Even without a formal "team" as we know it now, there would still be behind the scenes dealings. There has been for years.

Remember why alternates are not allowed back into the ladder, if someone else who made it can't run first round. Had nothing to do with teams then?

One important thing to remember is that dives do not always come from the team. I know of sponsors who have made that call to their cars. Don't know if that happened here or not but it has in the past.

So where do we go. Can't police them, can't stop it. Drop the countdown to lessen the need for them to occur would be a HUGE step one.

 

[John Farce Racing]

There is no way to fix it nor is there anyway to police it. With the nhra already throwing out the integrity and meaning of a championship I guess acts like this just go along with it. I wish people running the show would understand that each decision is not made in a vacuum. Each action has ripple effects. Yes the countdown is a joke and does lead to the instances of this happening increasing, however to be fair dives have been around long before the clowndown was invented. However before, you may have a dive late in the season and with so few cars in the points battle the occurrence wasn't very often. Now with 2 cut offs (playoffs and the countdown winner) they have made 2 deadlines where these type of actions need to happen. Also with 10 teams in the playoffs and countless more fighting to get into that ten, they have not only made the need but the possibility and opportunity of these actions more likely to occur.

Will dropping the countdown end dives? no. But it would lessen the chances of it happening, I firmly believe so. As people have been talking here about dives, they talk about Force/Tped in the 90's, the DRS funny car about 5 years ago and Larry Minor/Gary Beck in the 80's. Since the countdown, in only its 3rd year, we have Cruz for Tony in year one, the Harley debacle last year and now Hight/Force this year.. Went from 3 in 3 decades to 3 straight years....and we're not done yet.

Eliminating multi car teams would lower car counts or just make secret arrangements then. Not allowing teams to score points on each others would not help either. All of a sudden Ashley, Robert, Capps, Jack and anyone else would now magically own their team.

Even without a formal "team" as we know it now, there would still be behind the scenes dealings. There has been for years.

Remember why alternates are not allowed back into the ladder, if someone else who made it can't run first round. Had nothing to do with teams then?

One important thing to remember is that dives do not always come from the team. I know of sponsors who have made that call to their cars. Don't know if that happened here or not but it has in the past.

So where do we go. Can't police them, can't stop it. Drop the countdown to lessen the need for them to occur would be a HUGE step one.

So why can't my idea No. 3 work? (See earleir post)

It doesn't try to eliminate muti car teams.

Making a "deal" would have a far bigger risk, since the teams involved wouldn't know if would count.

It would eliminate the countdown.

It's not perfect, but it would put a variable in place that a team owner could not manipulate.

 

[PJ]

Too many deeper issues for it to work Duane.

Inevitably a race will be chosen where some oddity went down, leaving people to make accustations that such and such a race was chosen to help this or that person/team. A sponsor put preassure on this and so forth.

Also what happens if a record happens at a race? If the race ends up not counting does the points for the records stay? Does the record even count?

At what point are which races chosen? After the finals and Pomona do we sit around waiting for them to draw 20 races out of a hat and figure the points and crown a champion? Also the arguement would then be well if it had been these 20, this person would be champ or that person.

 

[turbo ken]

Here's the way to fix it!

How about rather than having team mates run each other, have an NHRA official (along with the owners of the other teams as witnesses, so no one could cheat with a double sided coin) go to the Force team pit area, and have the official flip a coin (the one who would have had lane choice would get to call heads, or tails in the air), example: John Force calls heads, it lands tails so Robert wins, and he doesn't even have to make the run (so there would only be one semi-final F/C race) since Ashley won the only semi-final race, so she would get to call heads, or tails, she calls heads, and it lands heads so Ashley wins the U.S. Nationals, so she doesn't have to make a pass to win (so there wouldn't be a final round F/C race), as a bonus John gets to save the money that he would have had to spend to have his cars make 4 passes, now every bodies happy because the outcome was not pre-determined.

If you have a better idea that isn't complicated let's hear it.

 

[John Farce Racing]

Too many deeper issues for it to work Duane.

Inevitably a race will be chosen where some oddity went down, leaving people to make accustations that such and such a race was chosen to help this or that person/team. A sponsor put preassure on this and so forth.

Also what happens if a record happens at a race? If the race ends up not counting does the points for the records stay? Does the record even count?

At what point are which races chosen? After the finals and Pomona do we sit around waiting for them to draw 20 races out of a hat and figure the points and crown a champion? Also the arguement would then be well if it had been these 20, this person would be champ or that person.

I guess thats why I thought that an 3rd party independant firm could be used to try eliminate the argument about which races are chosen.

As for the records, I guess I would say that those points would count, even if the round points didn't for that race. I don't know if the races should be picked at the start of the year and then sealed( probably open to bribes and so forth then).

Just off the top of my head I guess picking them randomly with a computer at the end would be better. with a computer the points could be determined in a matter of seconds, wouldn't take long.

As for the argument that if these certain races had been picked racer X would have won, thats probably valid, but it happens now. The last 6 races are given far more weight that the ones before them. I don't know man, I'm just throwing ideas out there to be shot down! Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

 

[PJ]

true it would have no more or less validity then the current countdown but it would take a heck of alot of sizzle out of the race.

Imagine Shoe's "The run" if that race wasn't the one that counted then one of the greatest passes of all time wouldn't have mattered.......although I suppose under this nobody would know what the points were throughout the season so nobody would know what was a big run or what wasn't.


One plus is that currently I would not pay money to go to a mideason race. Too many guys who are high in points go into test mode. Under your idea, at least they would all race 100% at each event not knowing in the end which ones mattered

 

[ch3no282]

The countdown needs to go away. The best team and driver is not winning the championship anymore. Look at Antron this year. He pretty had the title wrapped up and now he has a 30 point lead???? Makes no sense if he doesn't win the title this year what a slap in the face. GO BACK TO 1320'. Put bigger chutes on the cars and develop a braking system for the front tires on the Top Fuel cars. These guys are rocket scientists somebody has to have a better idea than 1000'. Thats like telling the NFL to shorten the field to 50 yards, or MLB to play 6 innings. 1320' is what we do!!!! IM SO SICK OF THE NHRA right now. These guys in the corporate office are ruining our beloved sport!!!!

 

[Marchboom]

The real issue here is, how do you PROVE a car took a dive. There are so many ways to make a car run slower or go up in smoke, how do you PROVE it was intentional?

Every multi-car team faces the possibility that they will have to race a team mate. And no one will say that the BIG money involved with sponsorships doesn't have influence.

But what IF Force's team did everything right but thru a fluke he lost? Would he still be accused of taking a dive? You bet! That's just the way it is.

My solution to this problem? I don't have one. At least not one that works.

Regarding the Pedregon/Force "display", Forget the fine. But both drivers should be banned from entering the 2010 Winternationals.

 

[haagar]

Regarding the Pedregon/Force "display", Forget the fine. But both drivers should be banned from entering the 2010 Winternationals.

That just makes the fans the big loser in the whole deal.

 

[Jer]

I hope both the Pedregon's qualify to where they face the Force cars in the early rounds and take em out no c-ship for the Force teams!!!