Alright. This is the Lap Raptor podcast. It is October 8th. It's a Tuesday. We're gonna take a look at the races that were from Talladega that just went by.
Justin Barber:Specifically, I wanna take a look at some of the drivers who are interesting in those races. We'll start off with the cup race because it's it's the big boy. It's the one that that we all care about. Ricky Stenhouse won. It's his 4th career win.
Justin Barber:They've all come on superspeedways. In fact, he's won all of the traditional superspeedway races. He's won both spring and fall Daytona and spring and fall Talladega. Those four wins on supers are the most since he won his first race in 2017. He won 2 that year.
Justin Barber:It's the most since 2017. William Byron and Ryan Blaney both also have 4. Those guys you think of as good superspeedway racers. And I think you likely think of Ricky Stenhouse as being a good superspeedway race racer as well. But he's got a nickname.
Justin Barber:Rekki. And it's it's certainly true. Yes. 32 cautions caution involvement since 2017. Now the Lap Raptor caution involvement stat isn't perfect.
Justin Barber:I was looking at I was looking at the Xfinity road course race stats ahead of the roville. And this year, if I recall correctly, AJ Allmendinger has only finished, like, 2 of 4 or 2 of 5 road courses that he's been on, but he has no caution involvements. So he's not finishing these, but he doesn't have caution involvements. I didn't take a look too deeply. But the way that it works is whatever NASCAR says, whoever they say is involved in the caution, then that counts as a caution involvement, which should be pretty good, but some guys get indirect.
Justin Barber:So it's not a perfect stat to determine how risky a driver you are, how much you get into trouble because you may, on a road course, for example, or even on a super speedway, you may get into trouble and and not cause a caution because you can get out of the way in time. But he's got 32 since 2017. 32 caution involvement involvement since 2017 when he won his first 2 super speedway races. His first two cup races. Number 2 is Kyle Larson at 25 over that period.
Justin Barber:So he's by far the most caution involved racer there is. He's very he's very boomer bust. I don't know which one's boom. I don't know which one's bust. Is wind boom or is wind bust?
Justin Barber:Because 32 caution involvements. That's a lot of booms. I call them in my in this article in the in the recap post on blog.lapraptor.com, lapraptor commentary. I call him a 160 9 a 196 mile an hour bowling ball because that's what he is. He wins.
Justin Barber:He wins. You can't say a lot. You can't say 4 wins in, what, 8 seasons? You can't say that's a lot of wins. But he wins more than most on super speedways, but he also gets into a lot of cautions.
Justin Barber:So I dove deeper into his stats to take a closer look because wins and caution involvements is is very binary. It's very black and white. It doesn't give us a lot of nuance, which is sort of the point of Lapraptor. All the statistics that Lapraptor provides are supposed to provide a bit of nuance that wins and crashes and finishes can't provide. There are only 36 winners in a cup series season, So there's not a lot of granularity there.
Justin Barber:You either win or you don't, and most of the time, you don't. Even the best drivers in a historic season, you're winning a quarter of the races. There was a time that a 2 50 average was really bad in baseball. 2 50 on base percentages certainly does not does not keep you in the major leagues. And yet it is a historic win percentage if you're doing that in a season.
Justin Barber:So I don't like wins. Wins are the name of the game, but how do you get to wins? You know, good drivers and good cars are going to win more. And so, how do you determine that? Well, you can look at the other things.
Justin Barber:And so, you can look at simple things like top tens. Well, on superspeedways, Stenhouse since 2017, he's got the 13th most top tens of the 32 drivers. So he's about mid pack. He's got the 17th best average finish. Again, he's mid pack.
Justin Barber:And with regards to the cautions, he's finished 24 of those of the 38 Super Speedway races that he's run since 2017. Now to be fair, that's 14th best. He's sandwiched between Joey Logano and Aragonmarola. He finishes more than Brad Keselowski, William Byron, Justin Haley. I think you think of Byron and Haley as guys who know how to run super speed ways.
Justin Barber:Ryan Newman is, 17 of 20. That's a good number. So I think statistically, he's probably more middling, but he just knows how to win. Which brings me to another point from that race. In the preview for the cup, the Yellowwood 500, the cup preview for that race, I was skeptical that Penske, specifically Joey Logano and Austin Cindric, I was skeptical that they would be successful in the race.
Justin Barber:Logano is one of only 2 repeat winners going back to 2023 where he was going in. But I think Stenhouse is there now. Logano on Super Speedway's, he has a 9.84 average running position. Austin Cindric, 10.3. Those are the top 2 average running positions on superspeedways.
Justin Barber:But, in 11 starts each, between them they only have 7 top tens. Their teammate, Ryan Blaney, has 7 top tens on his own. Logano has 4. Cindric has 3. So, Cindric is finishing the top 10, like a 27% clip.
Justin Barber:Logano, 4 of 11. What's that? 35%. I don't think that running up front is good. I think there's something to Penske where they think that running up front is good.
Justin Barber:Obviously, it is good. And you certainly wanna be there late in the race, which is where Lugano and and Cindric were in that race. But I don't think they're this program works for them. They want to be together. That was made clear on the broadcast.
Justin Barber:Ford wants their drivers to run together. And the top 4 in average running position since 2023 on superspeedways is all Ford's, Eric Almirola. Eric Almirola is the other one. Excuse me. Almirola has one top 10 in 6 races.
Justin Barber:You're more susceptible to get in trouble when you're running up front. Denny Hamlin normally like likes to run out back. It doesn't work for him either. To be fair to to everyone involved. It it typically does not work for him, but I think it's a middle ground.
Justin Barber:People tend to overcomplicate this. Everyone's running in a pack. The first 150 laps at Talladega, especially in the playoffs, don't really matter. Nice to pick up stage points. Better to finish the race.
Justin Barber:Better to get those closing points. Teams should be, you know, less adamant about strategizing this stuff early on so they can keep their drivers out of trouble. The best drivers know how to do that. Stenhouse might be one of those. Stenhouse might be one of those guys who knows how to stay out of trouble, and that's why he wins.
Justin Barber:Yes. He gets into cautions, but he wins. He's very aggressive, but he's aggressive in an intelligent way that, you know, maybe a lot of these guys aren't. Who doesn't have wins on super speedways in the last 2 years? Kevin Harvick didn't win in 2023.
Justin Barber:Larson doesn't have a win. Martin Truex, Ross Chastain, Justin Haley, Denny Hamlin. I'm just listing names. Cindric doesn't. Eric Jones doesn't.
Justin Barber:Chase Elliott doesn't. Corey LaJoie doesn't. Keselowski, Bowman Bell. There's a lot of big names who maybe they don't know how to get it done on these super speedways. It's tricky.
Justin Barber:I've started using the term skill track in some of these articles. And by that, I mean non drafting ovals, which you may see as NDOs and road courses. These are races that I think you put any driver in the world in, and they're gonna use their racing skills. The super speedway is is very much it's very different. You know, NFL is a similar term, skill positions.
Justin Barber:Those are basically just the fantasy positions. It doesn't mean that there's not skill involved. But what's evident when you watch is the skill of the player. When you watch an old lineman, it's hard to tell if he's good. When you watch a quarterback and he launches a ball 60 yards downfield, that takes some skill.
Justin Barber:And then when the receiver catches it with one hand, that takes some skill. But you didn't notice the old lineman. So that's where skill position comes from. That's what I mean with this is, when you're watching a super speedway race, they're just kinda going around like a highway. But there is some skill involved.
Justin Barber:It's just different skill than the other ones. The other call out from my recap of Talladega was it was Michael McDowell's 6th pole of the year. That's basically 20% of the races this season. He's been out front. He started out front.
Justin Barber:It's not working for him. It's costing him statistically. He's got a negative 4 PFA in the 39% success rate. His best finish on these super speedways is 8. In his last 5 polls, his best finish was 21st, and that was at spring Talladega.
Justin Barber:He finished 37th on Sunday. Is yet again a an example. Being out front doesn't matter. And I did post an article about that with a little graphic in it about does average running position matter on super speed ways. Or I plotted.
Justin Barber:This isn't great statistical analysis. I I can admit that, but the average running position against the average finish for all the drivers since 2020. It's each of the seasons. Right? It's a driver season.
Justin Barber:So Denny Hamlin's 2020. He had an average finish of 2.25 and an average running position of about 14. It's a big blob. You don't really see a trend. It's slightly slightly downward trending, but it's a big blob.
Justin Barber:It's it's not very predictive. That's why when I analyze these super speedways, I'm trying to predict, and I don't do a good job of predicting these races. Again, the wins tend to stick out in your mind. Who won? Well, my guy didn't win.
Justin Barber:And so you don't think it worked out. But I think the the main point when I'm trying to predict I'm trying to figure out who's gonna survive to the end. Who's gonna have a car that still works at the end? I had Kyle Busch and Alex Bowman. Where did they finish?
Justin Barber:I don't remember. Kyle Busch, 19th. Alex Bowman, 16th. But they were running. They were running.
Justin Barber:And I don't know that they had a caution involvement. I played it too safe. That's what it looks like. But that's the idea, it's trying to predict who's gonna survive. I did that with Byron.
Justin Barber:I had Byron as a as a guy who, if you like winners, I said he was your best choice and he finished 3rd. So they're tough to predict, but I think you want survivors. You want guys who who survive and who have shown that they know how to win because I don't think we have the metrics to know who's gonna win these. When you look at the Lap Raptor metrics, net rating, speed store, sea palms, alphabet soup. These are all about speed.
Justin Barber:Everyone's running the same speed on super speedways. So they don't really work. Average finish can be distorted. If you crash on lap 20, you're gonna get 36. If you average a, what, a 14th, you can get plus 13 if you win, but you get minus 22 if you lose.
Justin Barber:There's more downside risk. That's worth playing around with. Now that there's 6 races on Superspeedways, maybe there's maybe there's something there. If you, have any ideas, let me know and I'll take a look at them. We move on to the Xfinity race now where Sammy Smith won.
Justin Barber:What's going on with Sammy Smith? In Arca, I remember this guy being pretty good. He had an average finish in 2022 as a 17 year old and his age 17 season in Arca. In 16 starts, he had 6 wins, an average finish of 2.94, and we estimate that his average running position was a 1.99. He ran 9 races in the Xfinity series that year.
Justin Barber:We estimate that his average running position was 9.91. A lot of that's how the estimated average running position. When you see that on the other series tab, just to to leak a little bit here. The way that we calculate that is it's very, you know, it's it's not great, but it is something. You look at 3 columns here.
Justin Barber:Average start, average finish, and percentage of laps led. So we have information from a given race on 3 positions for a driver. We know where he started. That gives us his lap 1. We know where he finished.
Justin Barber:That gives us lap n for an end lap race. And we know that somewhere in the in the in the middle of that race, we know how many laps that he led. And so we know the number of laps were positions 1. And so we just kinda say, alright. Let's wait.
Justin Barber:You know, we know that there's that many laps, and then we'll assume that the rest of the laps that we don't have any information on were split between where he started and where he finished. I think it's a decent idea considering we don't know the estimated average running position. We don't know the average running position, the actual. It's a decent estimate. It folds in a couple of different values and lets us have a decent approximation.
Justin Barber:It's like a, you know, well, it was literally the midpoint of the average start and the average finish weighted by how many laps were led. And so with 9.91, that's influenced by the 6.89 average start, he finished 18th. Then we move to Xfinity full time in the age 18 season 2023. Again, he's led 7% of his races of his laps. Only one win finishing 15th.
Justin Barber:He's got a negative PFAE and a 51% success rate. This year overall, he's got a 15 average finish. One win. Success rates jumped up 68%. That's good.
Justin Barber:That's good, but it's not great. Not exactly what you expect for a guy who's putting up eighties for success rate. In Arca, the guy who won 6 races in 16 starts, and his average finish was in the top 3. We can look at those skill tracks for him and we can look at the advanced metrics. 70% success rate.
Justin Barber:So it's getting better, but, you know, where are the results? He's got no wins. It's not like he's in bad equipment. He's in junior morif sports. The 71% success rate on these skill tracks is is really good.
Justin Barber:That's that's a really good number. But the 1.6 PFAE PFAE is finished positions finished above expected. So what does that tell us? That tells us that 70% of the time he's finishing better than where you would expect based on the starting position. But in on average, he's only finishing 1.6 positions better.
Justin Barber:So, if you're starting in 14th on average, your average finish is probably, for a 14th position, is probably gonna be about 14th. Well, I guess not. Because he's got a average finish of of 16th. Maybe it slides back a little bit. But it's basically the the the the consistency is there.
Justin Barber:Maybe consistency is the first thing you need to find as a young driver, as the guys in in his age 19 season. Maybe that's the first thing you need to find, getting new equipment. You know, maybe that maybe that's the first thing you need to find. Next year, he's gotta be able to peak that. Maybe sacrifice some of that consistency so that you you can go grab wins.
Justin Barber:Be a little bit more aggressive. Go grab those wins. Go grab those positions maybe you shouldn't be grabbing. Because we're seeing a lot of we're seeing a lot of bland across this advanced stat line. Net rating of 0.6 on skill tracks.
Justin Barber:His weighted average running position is only point 2 better than his average running position. So later in the race, he's not really doing any better than he did early on in the race. So I think for Sammy Smith, we've gotta see some some aggression as we move into the later part of the year and as he progresses in his career. Ryan Sieg finished in 2nd in that race. I've been a Ryan Sieg guy for a long time.
Justin Barber:Because he had a great 2020, and that was when I built Lap Raptor. And in 2020, he had 11 top tens. That was his best. Certainly in the in the in the normal Lapraptor database. A 70% success rate on SkillTrax.
Justin Barber:When he's got when his cars are good when the RSS cars are good, he's able to parlay that I was sorry. I was quoting 2019. He was starting in 10th in 2020. 9 top tens, which is tied for a 2nd best, but only a 50% success rate. But he's finishing in 15th.
Justin Barber:When he's got good cars, he can get decent finishes. This year he's having a great year, starting in 15th, he's finishing in 14th, 81% success rate. 5 top tens in 21 starts. That's just me reading off the stat line. But he's got a better average finish.
Justin Barber:You got a better average finish. I'm gonna list off some names here. Then Riley Herbst, Sammy Smith, Justin Allgaier, Shane Van Gisbergen, Sam Mayer, Josh Williams. Those are names. Those are names in good cars.
Justin Barber:He's finishing better than them this year. He's got the 8 best average finish. He's 36 at this point. I just find this a compelling story. The 78% success rate on skill tracks this year is the best in the Xfinity series.
Justin Barber:He's running his own team. He's got his own his name on the team. If I was somebody looking at getting involved in Xfinity, Ryan Seig would be somebody I'd be talking to. Because he's got skill, and he's able to put these cars together in a decent way. You know, they're able to get a lot out of this stuff, and he's a decent driver.
Justin Barber:You know, he's a he's a plus he's a plus driver in the Xfinity series. He's a he's a solid Xfinity series driver. I think there's more there if he had better equipment. If he was in JRM, I think he'd be a legitimate or fringe championship guy. I mean, with an 8th best average finish, you could argue he's already there.
Justin Barber:And then we move on to the the truck series. I should say the Xfinity series. Mayer got, got disqualified. They're looking at at they're gonna appeal that. Mayer, at some point this season, he said that he's disappointed that he's not getting cup consideration.
Justin Barber:I I don't know why he should. He's another guy where, you know, this this latest generation of guys to come out of Arca around the same times as same time as Ty Gibbs. Well, we haven't seen we haven't seen the best from them. So listen to this with Sam Mayer. His average running position since he went full time in the series.
Justin Barber:I remember when he was coming in, and they had to wait half a season to get him in because he was so young. Since he went full time in his age 18 season, 2022, average running position, 10.7, 2023, 10.5. 2024, 10.96. Very consistent average running position. His average starts, basically the same.
Justin Barber:His average finish, they were the same. 13.8, 13.2. This year, 19.52. Now we have the DQ. The DQ hurts.
Justin Barber:His success rates though, his best was in his, what I'm gonna call the rookie year, his 1st full time year, 67%. This year's at 44%, last year's 64%. He had 4 wins last year, which is really, really that's really good. But was there anything else? Yeah.
Justin Barber:The 7th best average finish last year. I was hoping this year you know, because I agree with Sam Mayer. I think he should be somebody that ideally teams would be looking at. His Xfinity career in terms of PFAE went negative 1.91. All right.
Justin Barber:Good jump, right? That's a good jump. 18 races to 33 races. He made a good jump. Year 2, 2.4.
Justin Barber:I would like to have seen a 3. 3 is good. 3 means you're doing very well in your series. Alright. 2.4.
Justin Barber:This year, what do we wanna see? Going into year 3 in the series as a top prospect, I want to start seeing dominance. I want to see that a high 4. Let's get into fives. That's what Haim and Ekus have been doing the last year or 2 in the truck series.
Justin Barber:I think they're both ready for more. That's what you want to see at the top guys in the Xfinity series. You either want to see domination on the track, which PFAE and Successor would have a hard time capturing because there's only so far you can go up. If you're starting in 12th, you can only go up to 1st. It's not like you can go to negative 5th and so there's a cap on how well the stats can do.
Justin Barber:And if you're finishing well, you're probably starting well because you got a great car. You would like to have seen dominance. Well, hey. The number here, 3.996. No.
Justin Barber:It's not it's not great, but it's like, alright. We've made improvement again. Wrong. It's negative 3.996. It's not been a good year.
Justin Barber:He's got 2 wins. We gotta see more out of this guy. If he wants to prove that he's ready for more, we need to see more of these underlying stats make a big jump. Either that or some serious domination on the track. He's gotta make it clear for me that it's not just that he's driving in JRM equipment.
Justin Barber:That it's actually him. Moving back to the truck series race, Grant Enfinger, he won this. It's just worth a call out for Grant Enfinger to, you know, throw some appreciation his way. He's been a great truck series driver for for a long time now. The last half decade, he's been a top ten trucker.
Justin Barber:He's been a top ten trucker. His names his name is on a list when you look at average running position, when you look at success rate. Average average running position, he's 10th. The 10th best since 2020. In fact, it's a 9.67.
Justin Barber:He's only had one above 10 since 2020. Names in front of him, Kyle Busch, Corey Haim Krytsianakis, Sheldon Creed, Brett Moffett, Zane Smith, John Hunter, Austin Hill, Todd Gillan. These are great drivers in the truck series. He's got 9 wins. He's got the most races on that list.
Justin Barber:But he's got 9 wins. I don't think he gets the appreciation for how well he's done. He's 9th in success rate. And, again, it's similar names ahead of him, but there's cup drivers here. Kyle Busch, Ross Chastain, John Hunter Nemechek.
Justin Barber:Got Parker Kligerman, Corey Haim, Christian Echas, Austin Hill, Nick Sanchez are the guys in front of him. He's done very well, and there's something interesting to be said about the direction of the truck series. Grand and Fingers 39, I believe. Are we going to lose these veteran truckers who fill out the truck series, who give the prospect something to think about when they're racing, who can kinda set a standard for guys coming out of ARCA in the regional series or even more obscure than those. Matt Crafton's getting up there.
Justin Barber:Friesen's had a hard time only on a ride if I'm not mistaken the last few years. End fingers 39. I think there's an opportunity for NASCAR to make the truck series into something interesting, not just sort of a the Pacific Coast League version of triple a. Pacific Coast League is known for having I don't even know if it's still around these days, but it was known for these ballparks where offense just went crazy because of the air. And a lot of times you'd leave your pitchers in double a instead of bringing them up to triple a.
Justin Barber:It seems like a lot of teams are, let's just skip trucks. We'll bring you up to Xfinity series. That's what we've seen a lot with this recent car up drivers. I hope that the truck series isn't just going to be the other guys. NASCAR should try to make the truck series.
Justin Barber:They've got distinctive vehicles that they're driving. NASCAR should try to make the cups, the truck series into something interesting, into something distinctive. And having guys like Enfinger, having guys like Crafton, I think Kligerman is another guy who could be there. I think Kligerman could be a Cup Series driver too. They're stepping away entirely.
Justin Barber:Having these veteran drivers run down there makes things interesting, and, I'd like to see NASCAR make more of an investment in that so that we don't lose the truck series feel that that those guys give us. And the other one in there, Taylor Gray. He's 19. Finished well in that race. I don't recall offhand.
Justin Barber:I'm gonna look here on where he finished. It was it was 2nd. Yeah. It was 2nd. He finished 2nd in the Talladega race.
Justin Barber:He's in his age 18 season according to Lap Raptor, which, puts your sort of your seasonal age at wherever whatever age you were on February 15th that year. His average running position keeps improving. His average finish keeps improving. His success rate keeps improving. And for the last 3 years, his PFAE has continued to improve, and he's doing what I wanna see.
Justin Barber:Since 2021, negative three 3, 3.8 improvement every year in the PFAE, and he's putting up big numbers for a guy in his age 18 season. Next year, it'll be his age 19 season. He's been around for 4 years now. He's been around since he was 15 in the truck series. He's become just another one of these guys who's not really winning races.
Justin Barber:Right? He's just kinda there. While the numbers are improving, you know, he's not he's not on top, but he's still a top prospect. He's worth remembering as a top prospect because I think he's got great upside. And I'd like to see in the next year or 2, I'd like to see him moving up because I think there are opportunities for him.
Justin Barber:I think there are I think there's a pathway for him to be a successful cup series driver, and I hope that they can keep him on the path to being so. Because these stats certainly show that he's just about ready for more.