Better competition remains to be seen from 'new' car

It's interesting how you can sit in front of your television set, whether it's in your family room, or in a race venue's Media Center, and just ignorantly be fat, dumb and happy thinking that this year's competition is better than last year's.

If not better, it just has to be just as good, right?

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I know I did.

But after a truly blessed Easter break, I thought I'd chart up a few stats to see just how things measured up -- from the first five races of 2007 compared to the first five of '08.

This may not be a surprise to a lot of you, but overall it's not looking too good for NASCAR's new car being a panacea of competitive bliss. In fact, there's very little to draw a distinction between the new car and its predecessor.

In stat categories that are easily quantifiable, the two seasons stacked up with 21 check marks apiece, favoring one over the other.

It appears the new car is better at Daytona, but in most cases a loser at the intermediate, high-downforce ovals. On Bristol's short track, comparing the spring races is nearly a dead heat -- but you have to take into account that Bristol reconfigured its track for the August 2007 race.

And the interesting thing is that while last August's race was pretty fairly panned by the critics, statistically speaking it fared better than the race of two weeks ago, won in a green-white-checker finish by Jeff Burton.

Just so we're on the same page, here's what I charted up as an estimation of relative competition.

First, I took total Lead Changes and how many drivers these changes were among and then added Green Flag Passes. I also computed the percentage of total passes that were made under the green flag.

For the 2007 Daytona 500, Kevin Harvick's last-lap pass of Mark Martin aside, the 2008 version soundly trounced last year's race from a statistical standpoint; 42 lead changes among 16 drivers compared to 13 among nine in 2007.

There were 36 green-flag changes in 2008, or an 86 percent ratio, to eight green-flag changes in '07, or only 62 percent. A telling point was that in each race, the pass for the lead was made on the final lap which, as we all know makes more than a few people forget a snoozer of a race.

For some reason, California favored the new car, with 33 lead changes among 15 drivers, and 17 of those under green-flag conditions, or 52 percent. A year ago, the speedway featured 28 lead changes among 12 drivers, but 19 were under green, or 68 percent. Again, is that almost a wash?

The higher speed intermediates, Las Vegas and Atlanta, really favored the standard car in their lead change stats. Las Vegas had 28 lead changes among 16 drivers in 2007 and only 19 among nine this season. Atlanta had 31 changes among 13 men in 2007 and, in the face of Kyle Busch's dominant performance earlier this month, 26 among only nine men.

Last year trounced this in green-flag changes at both venues; however, as Las Vegas boasted 23 green-flag changes a year ago, 82 percent; and Atlanta 20 green-flag changes, or 65 percent. This season they had 11 each, for 58 percent of the total changes in Vegas and only 42 percent in Atlanta.

Bristol, as short tracks usually are, was the anomaly, with more lead changes this year, 17-14, but fewer leaders than a year ago, eight to 10. And this season, with five fewer cautions, 11 lead changes, or 65 percent, were made under green compared to seven, only 50 percent, last year.

Loop Data

Five races into the season and the trends are apparent. One driver has established himself as the one to beat.

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Now, I know a lot of students in the class are jumping up and down in their seats and waving their arms saying, "What about lead changes in green-flag pit sequences?"

Great point -- but that's one I declined to even attempt to calculate -- though in doing the green-flag lead change calculation, I noticed that the 2007 Las Vegas event had a lot of lead changes that appeared to have come in green-flag pit sequences, since there were several spates of changes every lap, which for a track of that configuration ain't typically gonna happen unless the leaders are peeling off to pit, lap after lap.

I also charted when the last pass, or the pass for the win, occurred as well as how many cars finished on the lead lap, which is certainly an estimation of the level of competition.

In this season's first three races, almost 20 percent more cars finished on the lead lap: 32 at Daytona in 2008 to 27 in 2007, 22 at California in 2008 to 17 in 2007 and 21 at Las Vegas this season to 15 a year ago.

Atlanta had an 18-13 split favoring 2007, while Bristol had one more car finish on the lead lap in spring 2007 -- the debut event for the new car -- than in 2008, when 14 cars finished on the lead lap. So go figure.

Since the numbers were at my fingertips, though some of them are stats that can be interpreted several different ways, I also charted number of cautions, total caution laps, the races' average speeds and margins of victory.

Finally, and being "old school" this was not necessarily an easy one to do, I actually looked at NASCAR's loop data stats.

To some degree they appear to be centered on determining an individual's achievements, but there were two stats that I figured would involve the overall competition of the fields: "Green Flag Passes" and a stat called "Quality Passes" -- passing a car running in the Top 15 while under a green flag.

Anyway, I read them to mean "more passes equals better racing." I hope you agree.

Not surprisingly, they equal the passing stats for Daytona and California versus Las Vegas and Atlanta -- and again, Bristol is its own creature.

The stats for Green Flag Passes were accumulated by totaling green flag passes made by the first, 20th and 30th place finishes, trying to develop a snapshot of action through the field. Daytona 2008 was a narrow winner over 2007, 544-542; while California 2008 also came out ahead, 234-203.

The new car appears to be struggling rather badly at Las Vegas and Atlanta, two much faster ovals. With the standard car at Las Vegas, there were 226 green-flag passes to 155 this season; and at Atlanta, 216 with the standard car in 2007 to 114 in 2008.

Quality Passes have a similar outcome when charting the quality passes of the first, fifth and 10th place finishers. At Daytona, 2008's stats massacred 2007, 450-289; while California was a much narrower margin, 148-145.

The intermediates were again almost an alarming disparity; with Las Vegas having 162 quality passes in 2007 to 108 this season; and Atlanta 129 in 2007 and an almost shocking 52 in 2008.

Bristol's loop data stats, as I said before, almost make no sense. Comparing the 2007 spring race to 2008, only the car was the same, the track was not -- and this year's track outpaced last year's, 91 green-flag passes to 68 and 61 quality passes to 60.

But when comparing the identical tracks, in the first outing last August, which was on the verge of the Chase (which many blamed for tamer action), there were 130 green-flag passes to 91 two weeks ago; and 103 quality passes to 61 in Burton's win.

So what does it all mean? It seems competition has certainly not dropped off, but given shaky attendance and TV ratings, is it possible that's not enough to maintain people's interest?

And of their disgust with the new car's appearance and a general disaffection with the top 35 lock-in rule for qualifying, it may remain a tough row to hoe for cultivating interest in NASCAR's new car.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.