perkonis

This week’s Nextel Cup race brings with it the much anticipated Car of Tomorrow. If you haven’t seen these things yet, they are about as boxy as that picture I drew over there.

OK, they aren’t that bad. They looked absolutely hideous in testing, but with paint on them and hauling around Bristol, they look much better. (The paint isn’t likely to last long at Bristol) The Camry’s actually look pretty good. The Fords are OK. The Chevys and Dodges, not so much.

If nothing else though, the new inspection process for these cars is pretty cool. I just saw that “claw” contraption on Speed (pic via Jayski). The idea is to put all the templates on the car at the same time to both speed up inspection and ensure the cars are all built the same way. The car either fits in the claw or it doesn’t. Before the templates were checked individually. A car could pass each tech station by itself and still be so out of square it wasn’t funny. At least Hendrick and Gibbs didn’t think it was funny when NASCAR took away their cars for doing just that.

So what should the COT be? Here you go. Front splitter? Check. Rear wing? Check. 4th grade art class body design? Eh, sorry but no. These things even have the luxury of this new fangled fuel injection thing. I look for that to replace carburetors one day.

OK, that’s enough rambling for one post. I’ll try to actually post something coherent later.

Qualifying took place for the Daytona 500 last Sunday. Actually that was qualifying for the qualifying races. So 66 cars set times so that they can race to get in the race.

Now, the top 2 cars in qualifying for the qualifying races are actually locked into the real race (not the qualifying race) leaving 41 positions up for grabs. That means there are 64 cars that will line up in the two qualifying races. Ergo 23 cars will go home after the qualifying races but before the real race. Presumably the drivers will go home too. This is not good news for them unless someone forgot to set their Tivo and really need to see House.

So far the system seems easy enough, but hold on. The teams that were in the top 35 in car owner points at the end of 2006 are guaranteed a stating spot. The driver could go out, weave like a drunken gibbon, hit everything but the lottery, and wind up in the infield upside down and on fire, and still be guaranteed a starting spot (in the real race). Since the two cars that qualified on the front row were in the top 35 last year, that leaves 31 cars (and presumably drivers) fighting for 8 spots.

To further complicate things, there is the past champions provisional. If there is a past champion who doesn’t otherwise qualify, they get to line up last. If more than one champion is vying for the coveted position of dead last, it goes to the most recent champion. This means that theoretically, Herb Thomas could start the Daytona 500. However, the various permutations required for his to happen are so many that a super computer is needed to figure it out. And the WOPR just asks if I want to play a game. Since Dale Jarrett is pretty well assured of this position, it leaves 30 teams vying for 7 positions. These are getting to be some really bad odds.

Out of those 7 spots, 4 will be filled by the top finishers (who weren’t in the top 35 in 06) in the qualifing races (not the actual qualifying). The other 3 will be filled by the fastest qualifiers (from qualifiying, not the qualifying races) who weren’t in the top 35 (from 2006 owners point, not 2006 drivers points, and not qualifying for the qualifying races).

Ok, now that the whole qualifying thing is clear I think I can use the qualifying data (from the qualifying races, or is it from qualifying?) to predict the winner of the Daytona 500. So if i crunch the numbers… let’s see, carry the one, cosine of the square root of the average speed of the non-qualifiers (from the qualifying races, not qualifying), and I get the winner of the Daytona 500 as Ray Haroun. Crystal clear.