Finley NR2003 Simulation

As I type this, I am currently in the process of simming the 1952 season. I still need to catch up on this site by simming 56 races. A lot of these races were simmed years ago, so the rules I used at the time have also been lost to time. Because of this, I’m going to wait on revealing the rules so that they can be more consistent with how they are now.

As far as the point system and earning system go, those are more uniform as they are being used by Score4 to generate these HTML files.

For the point system, I have tried many over the years and have finally landed on one that I think is a great balance between winning and consistency, while also not giving too much of a penalty for skipping races.

I took the famed Bob Latford system of 1975 to 2003 and moved it up a few positions without changing the top 10 or top 5 increment increases, while awarding more points to the winner.

Maybe a side-by-side compairson would be better shown

Position	Latford System	My System
1	175	190
2	170	155
3	165	150
4	160	145
5	155	140
6	150	135
7	146	131
8	142	127
9	138	123
10	134	119
11	130	115
12	127	112
13	124	109
14	121	106
15	118	103
16	115	100
17	112	97
18	109	94
19	106	91
20	103	88
21	100	85
22	97	82
23	94	79
24	91	76
25	88	73
26	85	70
27	82	67
28	79	64
29	76	61
30	73	58
31	70	55
32	67	52
33	64	49
34	61	46
35	58	43
36	55	40
37	52	37
38	49	34
39	46	31
40	43	28
41	40	25*
42	37	22**
43	34	20**
44	31**	18**
45	28**	16**
46	25**	14**
47	20**	12**
48	15**	10**
49	10**	8**
50	8**	6**
51	5**	4**
52	4**	3**
53	2**	2**
54	1**	1**

*My field is limited to 40 cars, only expanding to 41 for special situations.
**Only calculated for owner points using the qualifying results of DNQ cars.

My system allows for more of a bonus for winning, while still retaining the consistency benefits that the Latford system awarded.

Like the Latford system, there are also a maximum of 10 bonus points for each driver in a race, and 5 goes to the driver who leads the most laps. Unlike the Latford system, 3 points go to a driver who led any lap, 2 points go to the polesitter, and 1 point goes to the second place qualifier.

This eliminates an issue with the Latford system where there was just a little too much of a benefit to a driver leading a lap, while still awarding points for raw speed by making qualifying worth something.

As far as earnings go, most money is paid out by race purses. Each race has a purse that is clarified in the results page on this website. Races also have bonuses that are clarified in the start-of-year post for things such as the rookie of the race, most laps led, polesitter, etc. That money comes from a seperate pot that doesn’t include the race purse.

Additionally, starting in 1950, the top 10 drivers in points the year prior recieve $5 in each race they start. Each season is split into blocks, and the top 10 drivers in points at the start of each block recieve $5 for each race they start, with the first block using the previous year’s points results.

This reflects a similar system in real life, in which NASCAR would pay essentially gas money to their top stars so that they wouldn’t be completely out on their feet if they crashed out. This money is also not included in the purse.

As far as the purse payments go, it pays out the top 25 finishers in a race as follows:

Position	Percent of Purse
1	40
2	13.5
3	8
4	6
5	5
6	3.5
7	3
8	2.5
9	2
10	1.5
11	1
12	1
13	1
14	1
15	1
16	1
17	1
18	1
19	1
20	1
21	1
22	1
23	1
24	1
25	1

This will change eventually as the years go on, but as of now in the early 1950’s, this is somewhat accurate in that the winner would recieve 40% of the purse. This is why I didn’t want to do a basic “the winner gets $1000, second gets $800…” system, because some races like Darlington just meant so much more in the winnings department.

This system is also used in allocating the points fund at the end of the season.