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Splitting Hairs at Thunderbird

by Renee Damm

15
Jul
2009

At the end of Sunday, sitting at 8 points, we were tied with Jeff and Marvin. So in a tiebreaker for the tiebreaker, it became: “The car that took the first one-sided point loses the tiebreaker.” And that settled it, we did, one control before Jeff and Marvin.

One Response to “Splitting Hairs at Thunderbird”

  1. Jeff McMillen Says:
    February 18th, 2009 at 4:12 pm

    Yes, the tie breaker for the tie breaker for the tie breaker started to fade into the realm of randomness. I am happy that the two cars involved in the tiebreaking were both TeamD vehicles as at that point both were happy with a coin toss (and in fact we had the coin at the ready when Paul proceeded with the eventual path).

    That said, the fact that the scores were that close (and that the tie breaking procedures as outlined in the supplementals failed to resolve anything) have spurred discussion on whether to use raw scores or raw zeros to break ties instead of “corrected” scores to break ties.

    Personally, I am in favor of looking at the raw scores for tie breaking and could be in favor of using raw scores for scoring winter events with the addition of the safety grace period if a car is late as already included. Basically, raw scores would count as the actual score with the provision that if a car was late, that car would not be penalized further unless it lost more time.

    Example: If a car scores a 17 late at a control, their score would be a 17. For all controls after that (in a leg) a score of 17 late or less, up to 0, would be a zero while a score further late than 17 would be scored the raw late – 17.

    So:

    CP Raw Current Proposed
    1 17L 16 17
    2 19L 2 2
    3 5L 0 0
    4 1E 0 1
    5 7E 6 7
    6 5L 4 5
    7 2L 0 0
    Total   28 32

    This amended winter scoring rule would net the car a total of 32 while current rules would net the car a 28. Summer scoring would net this car a 56. (Check my math, it may be shoddy).

    Or, to look at a regularity from this past Tbird (Trout 1):

    CP Raw Current Proposed Summer
    1 1L 0 1 1
    2 0 0 0 0
    3 0 0 0 0
    4 0 0 0 0
    5 2L 1 2 2
    6 0 0 0 0
    7 1L 0 1 1
    8 1L 0 0 1
    9 1E 0 1 1
    10 2E 1 2 2
    11 0 0 0 0
    Total   2 7 8

    The benefits are the score more accurately show the performance of the team (driving, navigating, accommodating to the conditions and wheel slip, all the components of winter TSD) while still allowing for the safety aspect of trying to catch up in treacherous conditions.

    And the elephant in the china shop here is if you apply this scoring scheme to this last Thunderbird, the top positions would be different than the ones in the current scoring scheme.