Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

https://worldofoutlaws.com/sprintcars/the-one-and-only-format-knoxville-set-to-make-history-aug-13-15/

I like it. Seems to have nice balance.

Close enough to the original KnoxNat's format that we all know/love/bitch about!     

Points every time on track,  8 invert (out of 12 this time) in heat are two key elements to the Nationals success. 

I like it, honestly I feel like we may see better racing over the course of 3 nights than we would typically with 4 during the Nat'ls. We will for sure see more racing laps on Saturday than during the normal Knoxville Nationals Sat night.  Hats off to the creators of this event. Excited for the 2020 Covid Nationals!!

Seems like a good format. Only little thing I would have liked is more A feature laps, especially for Saturday. Would have liked it to be at least 40laps. I still like the 50lap Nationals even though some people don't but thought this would be 40. Oh well, at least there will be racing

Good format indeed. Close enough to the Nationals format that I'm interested again. I was worried it would be three stand alone night of regular format. I didn't look very hard but did it have points disparity listed for qualifying, heats, and mains? Idk be curious to see if more or less emphasis was placed on qualifying compared to nationals.

Top qualifier gets 100 pts with it decreasing by one for every spot.

Heat winners get 100 pts with it decreasing by five for each position.

A main winner gets 250 pts with it decreasing by three for each position.

Of course we all know that previous years was 200 for qualifying with it decreasing by two for each spot. Heat winners got 100 with it decreasing by three. A main winners got 200 with it decreasing by two.

I like it, the only thing I wish they would've done is gotten rid of time trials.  The one positive thing about this pandemic is it seems like all of professional sports will have an asterisk by them.  So what better time to try new things?  I like what NASCAR has done and I like the changes baseball is trying.  If people hate the ideas, just go back to the way it was.

I actually like that better than Nationals format

Time Trials have the same weight as heats, rather than the same weight as A Main

To me, racing should count more than TT

If there was ever a year to experiment with things it is this year. In years past when people looks at champions and games/races won they will remember it was the pandemic year. In some sense everyone goes into it playing with the same rules and are under the same circumstances as well, just not what we have been accustomed to for decades or centuries. I have watched some Nascar things and it appears the product is a little better than years past. Not sure about attendance for midweek races though

I don't mind time trials at all and like how they have made the hot laps matter with them determining the qualifying order which takes the luck of the draw out of the equation a little bit. I get a little uneasy feeling in my stomach when people start talking about ditching qualifying completely because it seems gimicky to me. I get that watching 1 or two cars race the clock is not that entertaining but at the same time, I like my competition pure and less smoke and mirrors as possible. Pill draws for lineups then inverting that just puts too many factors in determining a winner. I want the winner/champion to be the best competitor whether I like them or not which is why I like the regular Nationals format so much. This one is still a pretty good option with some of the things potentially being adopted in the future. Seems like they Combined the Jackson Nationals with the Knoxville Nationals

It's a good format because you can't sandbag. They should make this the format for the Kings Royal honestly. 
Adding up the points for time trials and heats to set up the dash means you really can't go for mid pack in time trials to get a better spot in the heats because you'll be penalized for the poor time in the points. 

I think NASCAR has done awesome.  In fairness I think the racing was much better last year and it's continued to get better.  I'm not sure about the track attendance of a mid week race either but lets be honest, attendance hasn't been real great anyway.  I'd love it if ultimately NASCAR continued with the no practice or qualifying and run multiple races a week and be done by mid September or if they want to run longer, don't run on Sundays.  They're not going to beat the NFL so I wish they'd give up on trying.

I get what you're saying with the time trials and I've never been sure how you could fairly get rid of it.  I just absolutely hate sitting through watching one car on the track at a time.  There is still a little bit of luck of the draw with the current time trials format since the track is usually fastest right away and slows down, so if you time late, it's going to be tough to set quick time.  I love the hot lap idea and I think this could ultimately be the solution to get rid of it.  I would even be ok if they ran 2 flights of hot laps/qualifying just in case two cars got to racing which would slow both of them down.  There's lots of ideas you could do with this.

I just got home from Lincoln. Now that I’m in front of my computer and unwinding, my curiosity got the best of me. I wanted to see how the lineup for the 2019 A main might have changed if they used this year’s format. I used the top 16 lock in drivers and their point totals from their preliminary nights as a reference.

2019 Knoxville Nationals A Main Starting Lineup

1. Reutzel 487
2. Gravel 481
3. Saldana 479
4. Shaffer 474
5. Price-Miller 473
6. Sweet 470
7. Kaeding 466
8. McMahan 465
9. Marks 464
10. Pittman 464
11. Starks 463
12. Juhl 457
13. Eliason 455
14. I. Madsen 455
15. S. Haudenschild 453
16. Dewease 451

2019 Knoxville Nationals A Main Starting Lineup Using 2020 Format

(Parenthesis indicate positions changed by format)

1. Gravel 437 (+1)
2. Sweet 433 (+4)
3. Reutzel 432 (-2)
4. Saldana 426 (-1)
5. Starks 421 (+6)
6. Marks 415 (+3)
7. S. Haudenschild 412 (+8)
8. Price-Miller 412 (-3)
9. Eliason 411 (+4)
10. Shaffer 411 (-6)

I cut this lineup off at 10 because if I go down too far, then there is a really good chance that someone from 17th-20th would have leapfrogged into the lineup and frankly, I’m not that awake. As you can see, some interesting changes…. if my math is correct. I’m excited to see how this new format turns out.

The actual amount of points awarded doesn't matter, just the amount it drops per position.

The no practice would be great as it always seemed that they were always practicing or testing. I think in the 90's they had a practice for qualifying & 1 happy hour for the race. The whole competing or matching the NFL was stupid from the start and should have never been tried. I like the idea of double races on the weekend and mid day races on television. Ratings for Kansas were down but watching a race at Kansas (even though I do want to go there) is like watching two 4-8 football teams on Monday Night Football, no point in watching unless its one of your favorite teams.

I know that the whole single car qualifying isn't the most exciting things but for me its part of the show. I remember some were talking about how it delayed the show so last year I had timed some shows from Outlaw's to All Stars. All of them were around 15mins from the time the first car hit to the last car and these were 40+car fields. A couple did last 20mins just because of an accident but for the most part, 15mins isn't that long. Now for the whole program having multiple classes qualify can get painful but I think that is more of a too many class problem versus qualifying. I don't think there is a completely perfect system but this Hot Lap solution seems somewhat better on the surface. Still could see some complaining about the first hot lap session getting screwed due to the track conditions. We will see what comes out of it be this is the year to really try some new things and see if it can stick.  

Me likey

Seems like a good format for the "Non-Nationals" and a good year to try something a little different.  +1 to the WoO and the Knoxville Raceway management!

True.... Decreasing 5 for each heat position & 3 for A main. as compared to only 1 for TTs, makes them more important

I like it

How did you like the double heat format at Lincoln?

I've been advocating that for a while, but they used TTs as a tie breaker. That seems fair, but my thing was to eliminate Time Trials

Gravel's win from the front row made it irrelevant, kinda...

Yep, the ALMOST got it right. I would have preferred best result instead of cumulative from prelim nights. Locking 4 drivers into anything has always sucked and will continue to suck until the end of time. At least they de-emphasized time trials.