Jon Wallace’s Guide to the Season (Ahead of the Pack Preview)
So my big project lately has been working hard on my first novel Ahead of the Pack.
If you've read Heat 15 from Sofawolf Press, you've already met the main characters and seen the antics they've gotten into. This novel will give the whole story of how they got there and what happened after.
But, since many people might not have a firm idea of how stock car racing works, here's veteran weasel driver Jonathan Wallace's breakdown of how a season-long champion gets crowned.
Art by Merystic of FA for SofaWolf Press' Heat 15
Kit and Luke gave you a look into what racing is, so it's up to me to tell you what it's all for. Cuz yeah you get a trophy and cash after every race, there's only so much each race pays out. So what happens if you don't win? And why the hell would you come back 35 more times? Simple--to crown a yearlong champion.
The legend is that that when the Stock Car Racing Association was founded back in 1949, the points system was written up on a cocktail napkin over lunch in a Florida bar. The bar is still there, across town from SCRA's headquarters and the track that hosts the season opening race. Kit insists we eat there once a year, and they do have a bar napkin with a bunch of numbers scribbled on it proudly framed on the wall. As for the system itself, there's been some tweaking over the years, but for almost sixty years, all levels of SCRA have followed the formula set down at that first meeting.
Still with me? Okay, good. History's out of the way, and now it's time for math.
The gist of it is simple: winner of the race gets the most points, and each position behind that gets incrementally fewer points. If you lead a lap (meaning you're in first place at the start finish line), you get bonus points added to your earned points. If you lead the most laps, you get additional points.
Since the Seventies, the SCRA points system seemed kinda arbitrary: winner got 185 points, second got 170 then it stepped down by 5 points per position before switching to 4 points per position for a while, then 3, then 2, then 1 until the last place (43rd) got 34 points. Leading a lap got you 5 points, with an additional 5 points for leading the most laps. It worked for a long time, but the system rewarded consistency way more than winning races. That was fine for a long time, since the championship was originally an attaboy--the big money was put out on individual races. But as the sport grew, so did the companies willing to throw massive amounts of cash to slap their name on stuff and get it on TV. So a switch happened--while marquee races still paid, the Money was in winning the championship. And with more eyes on the sport, a lot more people started asking why the guy who won the most races didn't always win the title. Then, right around 2000, it just so happened for a couple of years in a row, Cup champions got crowned who only won one race in their winning season, while guys that won four races finished second or even lower.
SCRA decided they wanted to reward winning more, so the year Kit won his second Grand National Championship in (2006), the points system was simplified. The system that they came up with then is still currently in use. Now a days the winner of a race gets 43 points (makes sense since that's a full field, right?). Last place gets one point. Lead a lap for an additional 5 points, and leading the most laps nets you another 5 points.
The mathematically inclined out there may notice that under the new system, a driver that finishes second and leads the most laps would get more points than the driver that won the race. They would be technically correct. But while that may be the best kind of correct, it kinda defeats the purpose of making winning a race the way to get the most points. Simple problem to fix, though: the winner of the race gets three additional bonus points.
Do that thirty-six times and you get a champion. Simple. Just as long as you don't do something wrong--SCRA often takes points away when they penalize teams. It's supposed to be a deterrent to keep you inside the box of SCRA's rules, but really it just means you work hard in the gray areas to not get caught. Because we're all out to win. But only one of us gets to be the champ at season's end.