Plenty of racing statistics

When I was in high school, I had a classmate who was a baseball statistics freak. This guy could quote you the batting average of every major league player, all the pitchers' stats, you name it.

I was reminded of him when I got an email from NASCAR the other day entitled "2006 Daytona 500 Loop Data Report." It seems that those timing loops that NASCAR installed a couple of years ago to determine who was where when a caution froze the field can also be used to generate a plethora of statistics.

Some of the stats are fairly obvious, like average running position. Not surprisingly, winner Jimmy Johnson topped that list with an average placing of 4.074. Green Flag lead changes (89) is another statistic we would expect to see, along with fastest lap of the race (Travis Kvapil at 192.602 on lap 162).

But the report gets into a much greater level of detail with things like green flag passes for position and number of times passed under green for each driver. There's also a statistic called "quality pass," meaning the number of times a driver passed a car running in the top 15 while under green. Clint Bowyer led the field in consecutive laps with a pass (35), while Greg Biffle made 19 consecutive passes without being passed, winning that category.

There are even categories for fastest drivers early in a green-flag run and late in a green-flag run. Fastest times at different parts of the track are also recorded, and I find it intriguing that a different driver posted the fastest time in each of those segments. Dale Jarrett was fastest on the front straight at 186.080; Denny Hamlin, at 187.395, was quickest down the back straight; Michael Waltrip was fastest in turn one at 193.078; Dale Earnhardt, Jr. topped the field in turn two at 186.625; turn three belonged to Jimmy Johnson at 188.319; and Jamie McMurray was king of turn four at 186.079.

Perhaps the most intriguing is one called "Driver rating," which is a formula combining several categories: wins, finish position, top-15 finish, average running position while on the lead lap, average speed under green, fastest lap, led most laps, and lead-lap finish. This rating will be cumulative over the season, with a maximum of 150 points per race awarded to any given driver.

Daytona winner Johnson scored 118.4 points to sit at the top of the heap, with Ryan Newman second at 114.2. And there are lots more statistical categories that I haven't even mentioned. So if my old high-school buddy is still around and has turned his attention from baseball to NASCAR, he's probably in hog heaven right now, memorizing all these stats so he can amaze his co-workers around the water cooler at work on Monday mornings.

Remember Charles Shultz's cartoon character Charlie Brown? He would always get fooled by Lucy who would talk him into trying to kick the football, then pull it away. Well, after 10 years of the Champ Car/Indy Racing League split in top-level American open-wheel racing, fans of the sport are starting to feel just like Charlie Brown. Rumors fly every year or two about reconciliation between the feuding parties, racing luminaries like Dan Gurney, Mario Andretti, and Roger Penske have tried to forge a truce, but the football always gets pulled out at the last minute.

Well, last Tuesday a leaked report of meetings and a tentative agreement between the IRL's Tony George and Champ Car's Kevin Kalkhoven put the football on the ground in kicking position again. A report on Autoweek's web site touted an agreement for a 50/50 ownership of a merged series for 2007 with the two leaders acting as co-chairmen.

Bridgestone, Honda, and Cosworth are said to be committed to the merger, along with Panoz chassis. Turbocharged engines will be the standard. Both Kalkhoven and IRL spokesman Fred Nation denied that there was a letter of intent or that anything other than discussions had taken place. So is the football being pulled away again, or will Charlie Brown finally get to kick it? Kalkhoven's take?

"If people truly care about open wheel racing in America, then please go away and leave Tony and I alone."