[Foghorn]

As of Friday, the SCCA site has the Speed Factors posted at http://www.scca.org/amateur/performance_rally/speedR.html
From the Factors is created a Speed Ranking which is used to determine start order, right?

Kent Gardam

 

[grinner323]

How do they figure those? Isn't Januz Kulig an international group N driver? And isn't Jonny Milner FIA seed A? I don't see how some drivers are ahead of them.
Philip J. Boer
[email protected]

 

[AlanPerry]

Because SpeedFactor is an average based on relative performance for a particular stage and that's it.

As it is currently stated in the rules, FIA Seed A and B folks don't seem to automatically get into the top seed draw for start order.

alan

 

[Mike Hurst]

You're joking....are start orders really determined by this list?

Jon Bogert ahead of Steve Gingras?

Jamie Thomas ahead of Bob Nielsen?

Wow.

 

[MDBodnar]

Makes it easy to put the start order together

But if it is the one I last looked at, I thought MHiggins was clearly fastest, so why would Lovell be on top??

I'll have to re-read the "calculations"

maybe some can explain, who already figured this out

 

[AlanPerry]

Article 2.2.B.1, SCCA Perf. Rally Rule Book:

"SpeedRanking: This is a ranking of competitor's speeds, from the fastest to slowest and is based on the best and latest SpeedFactor. SpeedRanking is used to set the Start Order of competitors at events. This ranking will be updated after each ProRally event."

Article 2.2.B.3.c

"The SpeedRanking chart supercedes all the old seeding system for determining the start order only."

alan

 

[gravelgeezer]

The reading of chicken entrails IS an inexact science. (So is
Politics.)

Bob Henderson starting in front of Jeremy Butts? How about calling the list "Fear Factor", or "Mobile Chicanery"?

...maybe this is just a therapy exercise at the Home. :+


George Beckerman
(speed factor these days: 0.01)

 

[Don Kennedy]

That defined what SpeedRanking is, but not SpeedFactor????????? So we still know nothing more than before.

 

[MDBodnar]

Seems like poor Bob is consistently the example of what is not working with seeding/start orders. Last year's initial seeding, this year's speed factor, yep very hard to trust the data and the formula when no one believes a few of the data points.

Again, I think the formula is explained somewhere,and I plan to look it up before recommending the data be fixed, but on the surface the data does not look "correct." (It could be correct according to the formula, in which case the data would highlight a few cases where the formula does not seem to be working.)


Maybe the calculation should be imbedded in the list so that when we look at the list we can look at how the list was developed.

Mike

 

[Foghorn]

RE: Speed Factors formula from the rules

Okay the rule book says:

2.2.B.2 SpeedFactor:
a. Details of the calculations:

Competitors SpeedFactor = Fastest Stage Time / Competitors Stage Time

b. Example

Fastest Stage Time = 10.00 SpeedFactor == 10/10 = 1.00
Competitor A stage time = 11.00 SpeedFactor = 10/11 = 0.91
Competitor B stage time = 12.00 SpeedFactor = 10/12 = 0.83
etc

c. A Competitors SpeedFactor is calculated as follows:

1. A SpeedFactor for each stage is calculated.
2. The best is deleted - as it could be a timing flyer.
3. The worst is deleted - as it could have had trouble on the stage - flat, etc.
4. The average of the rest is taken to get the event SpeedFactor.
5. At least 4 stages need to be run to get a SpeedFactor.

Kent Gardam

 

[Bruce]

RE: Speed Factors formula from the rules

As usual, the results are no better than the data. Obviously, the more good stages are included, the better the ranking will be. Several slow stages won't affect someone who ran every stage of every event, but the guy who ran only a couple of events will be greatly affected. With a little thought, most of the anomalies can be explained. What ought to be DONE about them is another question.

Bottom line, the event steward still has the ability (and duty, to my way of thinking) to change start orders for safety reasons.

Bruce

 

[MDBodnar]

RE: Speed Factors formula from the rules

Thanks to both Bruce and Kent for helping clarify the speed rating.

 

[Jon Bogert]

Hey now! I'm not as fast as Gingras, but otherwise I'm pretty well positioned.

I was turning some decent times at Maine last year until the turbo blew. But my stage times at STPR were uncharacteristically slow. So go figure...

 

[John Vanlandingham]

>Hey now! I'm not as fast as Gingras, but otherwise I'm
>pretty well positioned.
>
>I was turning some decent times at Maine last year until the
>turbo blew.
Hey Jon isn't the turbo supposed to blow? ...





John Vanlandingham
Seattle, WA. 98168

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

 

[daphne]

It all comes down to math and the Frequency Theory of Probability

Why is the speed factor list strange? Simply put, it's due to the Law of Large Numbers which says... in repeated, independent trials with the same probability p of success in each trial, the chance that the percentage of successes differs from the probability p by more than a fixed positive amount, e > 0, converges to zero as the number of trials n goes to infinity, for every positive e.

Easy, right? ;-)

What does this mean in our case? Simply put, the more stages run by a competitor, the closer the speed factor will come to success. Or, and this seems to be the case with a number of people on the list, the fewer stages run, the more likely you are to get a bad, non-representative result.

Based on the list, it seems that 4 stages is probably too small a sample size.

 

[Foghorn]

RE: Sno*Drift Start Order by Speed Ranking

If the new rules were in effect for Sno*Drift (which it seems that they are not), then based on the published info and rules, here would be the current starting order for Sno*Drift (which it probably won't be):

SpeedFactor Seed Driver Class Car

1.00 0 Mark Lovell O WRX
0.98 1 Ramana Lagemann O WRX
0.96 0 Seamus Burke O EVO 6.5
0.95 FIA Tapio Laukkanen O Impreza
0.95 0 Jonny Milner N WRX
0.93 2 Tim O'Neil O Focus
0.92 2 Shane Mitchell N Impreza
0.91 1 Jon Kemp O Quattro
0.90 2 Mark Utecht N WRX
0.89 1 Henry Krolikowski N Impreza
0.88 3 Paul Dunn O EVO 4
0.87 3 Wyeth Gubelmann N WRX STI
0.86 3 Matt Johnson G2 GTI
0.85 1 Steve Gingras O WRX
0.84 3 Dennis Martin O EVO 4
0.84 3 Mark Cox N EVO 4
0.84 3 Don Jankowski G5 Neon SRT4
0.84 3 Eric Burmeister G2 Protégé
0.83 2 Gail Truess O 323 GTX
0.83 5 Daniel Malott O Talon
0.83 3 Chris Gilligan O Eclipse
0.83 3 Russ Hodges N Impreza
0.83 4 Dave LaFavor PGT Talon
0.81 5 Eric MaCaire N Audi TT
0.81 3 Robert Olson G5 911
0.81 5 Chris Whiteman G2 Neon SXT
0.80 5 Johnathon Bottoms PGT 2.5 RS
0.79 5 Bruce Davis PGT Eclipse
0.79 5 Phil Schmidt G2 Toyota MR2
0.79 6 David Cizmas G2 GTI
0.78 5 Michael Cienkosz O Eclipse
0.78 5 Thanasi Samaras PGT Talon
0.77 5 Roland McIvor PGT Eclipse
0.76 5 JB Niday O Impreza
0.76 5 Tom Young G5 Neon
0.76 5 Robert Cutler
0.75 5 Mike Purzycki O Jeep CJ8
0.75 4 Scott Harvey PGT Talon
0.75 3 Brian Vinson G5 Neon SRT4
0.75 5 Jim Cox P Chevy S10
0.74 5 John Rek O Audi S2
0.74 5 Art Burmeister G2 GTI
0.73 5 Dave Johnson P Neon
0.72 5 Carlos Lopez O Talon
0.72 6 Mike Merbach P GTI
0.70 8 Greg Askin O Audi 80
0.69 6 Jake Himes P Sentra
0.67 8 Eric Heitkamp P Acura RSX
0.65 7 Brian Dondlinger G2 Jetta
0.65 7 Pete Hascher P Sentra SER
0.62 8 Joel Sanford G2 Cavalier
0.62 8 John Cirisan G2 GTI
0.62 7 Bruce Eddy G2 Neon
0.61 8 Brian Rehbein O Laser
0.61 8 Daniel Dondzik N Impreza
0.61 8 Andrew Tilston PGT Audi TT
0.61 8 Kevin Wesley G2 Neon
0.61 8 Karen Purzycki G2 Fiesta
0.56 7 Russ Rosendale G2 Golf



Kent Gardam

 

[jblewis]

It depends on what stages they counted... Bob Neilsen had a couple of dog slow stages at LSPR. And even if they dropped the single slowest, Bob would still have some stinkers to count against him...

JB

 

[randyzimmer]

not a gripe, just curious...

Tuthill had a pretty good couple of events winning most and leading almost always (I thought) but isn't near the tippy-top, kinda curious.
---
I like that the numbers don't leave room for pre-concieved notions and this method should be more fair for that reason but something doesn't seem right somehow.
---
For example, did Sheamus Burke hurt his standing by running any car he could get at the last event? Same with JB, did running the press car drop him down?
---
Doug Havir just started to put his foot down a couple events ago, did all his slower runs disappear or is the last event run weighted over previous results? (sorry Doug, but you understand).

Just wondering.
rz

 

[dch]

RE: not a gripe, just curious...

No offense taken Randy

As far as I know, yes, Seamus may have hurt his rating a bit by taking on a different car at Ojibwe (and he had rear diff problems too which slowed him on a couple of stages). If you ran four stages and won three of them, throw out the fastest time and the slowest and you're 1.00! It would be much harder to maintain that over a larger set of stages however. Are speed ratings averaged across the last 6 events or something? Or is it just the last event?

Downgrading to a slower car for an event will make you start higher up the line than you should, and moving up into a faster car will have you start farther back than you should. Unknowns (overseas drivers?) still have to be fit in "by hand". It's not a perfect answer in every case, it's just another tool for them to use to try and get people close to the right spot in the start order. As far as a "rule of thumb" goes, I think the speed factors should be fairly accurate given a large enough number of stages per competitor to calculate them on. I don't know how they handle all the folks with the same speed rating- draw straws? Seed within speed rating? Speed rating within seed? Soooo many questions...

-Doug

P.S. - What about ClubRally only events? If you go out and win your local ClubRally events and come close to a 1.00 speed rating, does that carry over when you enter a ProRally event? Unified seeding/start order, and all...

 

[daphne]

RE: not a gripe, just curious...

Doug -

I believe it was posted previously in this thread, but the rules state that a minimum of 4 stages need to be run.

What concerns me is that the perceived passing problem exists not at the front of the pack, but rather at the back. And given the limited number of events many lower seed drivers have participated in, the speed factor will probably not be accurate. In fact, I would postulate that the law of large numbers plays a great role in many of the lower seeded drivers' high speed ratings.

Now, another interesting factor here is that the speed rating does not take into account head to head competition, but rather event competition. This is, perhaps, why some drivers have moved up or down the list compared to people we would call "fast".

Hopefully, as we progress through the season, these numbers will be adjusted. It would be great if there was a start order chart that was more universal, taking into account both speed factor and, perhaps, more qualitative aspects that a steward uses. With a global list/order, we could still have consistency across events.