Autocross handicap scoring system

I've developed a spreadsheet to trial an autocross handicap scoring system that I am going to try with a few members of our local club. We have a varied range of people in the club who prepare their car to varying degrees. We use SCCA classes and Pax/Rtp for bumps. This works really well for cars built near the rules but sometimes people run under prepared cars or have a small mod that bumps them to MOD class or just want to run on cheap tires. I've played in a couple bowling and Golf leagues before and despite my poor performance in those sports been able to have fun competing with people of higher ability through a handicap system.

The following is copied from the local forum I discussed the idea on.

The Idea:

Over the course of a season you develop a personal Pax multiplier (Called I-Pax) based on your Raw time relative to the FTDi at each I-Pax event. At each event your I-Pax is calculated based on the average of previous event results and the event being scored. Your I-Pax is used to calculate a I-Pax time (Time-I on the spreadsheet) for that event which is compared to fellow I-Pax challenge participants. Scoring for each event is based on the fastest I-Pax time at the event divided by your I-Pax time multiplied by 1000.

A Google Doc will do the math automatically (This enables scoring easily from a smartphone onsite and allows for review of results by participants). Your I-Pax time and that events results would pop up (in the E#R tab) after the fastest raw times of participants are put in. Season points would be simply a sum of all the event point totals.

The Rules:

Because it's based on averages there are only 2 rules. 1. Participant must run their car in basically the same configuration at all events. Tire type, Suspension, Swaybars, Power level, weight must remain similar at scored events. Alignment is free. 2. Car must be allowed to run at your events. SCCA class does not matter, how prepared your car is does not mater.

Because the I-Pax factors in both car and drivers contribution to your final time it really is comparing your personal car/driver combinations performance to your expected performance based on your personal past results. Stated another way it's you vs you.

Locally results have been mixed however we are going to try it with some people this year to see if its any fun. I thought I'd throw the spreadsheets out here if anyone wanted to try it in their local club. It doesn't impact running an event and can either be updated onsite or after the event.

The mock results I've tried from actual local events seem enjoyable across broad skillsets and car types.

Here is a link to the spreadshee . https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OQDxp4l6AGBin-HiLZ-OC6HJ48lCePS16Wobzuu4dMI/edit?usp=sharing

Here is oje with dummy results to show how it coukd work. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QES69ka89x49dkHI4OzJzoeOtOpgaXtuK3NX_4HyzZA/edit?usp=sharing If someone is interested I can give you an editable link. If anyone is a spreadsheet god and wants to help make it better that would be incredible.

Sounds a little too NASAish IMHO.....

That's complicated.

When I first started autocrossing, I knew who the other guys were who ran about the same speed as me. Doesn't matter if was the car or the driver, we were close. So the goal at each event was to beat That Guy. There weren't any particleboard trophies involved, just racin'.

I still run that way. We don't have enough cars in the region for real classes. So after the first run or two, I have my target and it's all about beating That Guy.

I still say clubs like CCSSC need to use NASA scoring. Not going to get into that debate--we'll leave that to cicenet--but anybody wanting to compete in SCCA is going to do it anyways.

If you use NASA classing, you will get a phone call from NASA telling you your options.

1) become a NASA club, and use their expensive insurance
2) get a letter from their lawyers

And my little club no longer uses NASA classing.

The idea isnt that this replaces any existing classing system. It formalizes the process Keith describes and allows you to compare your performance relative to others over a season. It ignores car class and just compares specific car/driver combinations.

The math isnt that complicated. Fundamentally it is FTDi/Your RAW time = I-Pax. Compare that to your Buddy. If you've done better today than your past performance predicts you "win". If you do worse you "lose".

Apparently this does not have the appeal that it does when I talk to people about it in person. Am I making it seem very complicated?

I think that it is a great idea. Like Keith, I don't really care what class I am running in. Nor do I care to build a car to compete. I know where my "targets" are, and I enjoy trying to be faster.

I've proposed a dynamic scoring system to various clubs at different times. People are generally resistant to it, because they can't get their head around the idea that the car doesn't really factor in to them in a measurable way. But since most classes are themselves arbitrary, I don't really see that as a valid argument.

I need definitions before I understand, because I don't autox with SCCA or NASA.

FTDi: fastest time of day, individual?

RAW: ?

Keith Tanner wrote: I need definitions before I understand, because I don't autox with SCCA or NASA. FTDi: fastest time of day, individual? RAW: ?

Fastest time of the day, index (Using the SCCA classes and handicap factors)

RAW is just fastest raw time.

Your idea makes more sense than the PAX SCCA uses, it's pretty much useless as far as I'm concerned. And like Keith and Zoo, I don't really care about the classes much. In my area, I may be the only one in my class, as are some of the other cars that run similar times. We all pretty much compare our times to each other.

Its all too complicated and invented to make people think they aren't slower than a conglomeration of tubing and a motorcycle/snowmobile engine.

Sounds similar to the system used by the Capital Driving Club in the DC area. It is all "run what you brung" and indexed on a couple factors. Seems to work for them as all their events are usually sold out.

Let's see. Are you racing your buddies or others on a regular basis. If you beat them, you won. If not, someone else won. You really don't need another plastic or paperboard trophy do you? What will you do with it?

If you're getting ready for larger format like SCCA Regional or National events, or similar events, you need to use their rules. Otherwise, you're out of it before you show up. And they can be so petty, of you are successful you may well get protested for some violation you never heard of.

I can well remember years ago I was active in SCCA rallying. My partner and I had a 240Z with a rally computer and all the gizmos, so of course we ran in instrument class. Once we had pre-registered that car for a specific rally. But the day turned out to be beautiful so we decided to rally in a TR-3 with no instruments and enjoy the scenery. So we turned up in the TR-3 with a pair of Halda stop watches and a clip board. We checked the car in, it was passed, and we went out and enjoyed the day driving in instrument class.

God Forbid, by blind luck we scored well enough to trophy in a TR-3 with no Twin-Master, computer, whatever! When the results were announced, we were protested by a entry scored below us for not driving the car we pre-registered! If I were running with full instruments and got beat by a TR-3 with a Smiths Speedo and Odometer, I'd either buy the other team a beer or sneak out to hide my face!

This is the kind of issue you get into when people quit enjoying what they are doing and focus on plastic trophies!

Again if you're racing for end of the year or season club points, regardless of club, you need to have a specific class and stay legal in it. And be prepared for the stupid protests.

What's the spreadsheet for?

The CDC method is interesting. I wonder what there results look like running that. Its different and seems to address most of the apparent diferentiators of autox speed.

Thanks for the definitions, it makes more sense now - although a factor like FTDi doesn't do much to dispel the image that autocrossers carry slide rules

Having a fast guy come in and destroy FTDi is going to wreck i-Pax across events, but it'll still allow for relative comparisons against other drivers at the same event.

About Rupert's rally story - I've done one TSD. It was a painful thing, mostly because the rules required me to run 3 mph under the posted limit on roads with a very conservative limit. We had a full rally computer that could show average speed, so most of our conversation was "slow down!" "I'm boooored!" "SLOW DOWN!" "I'M BOOOORED!"

Anyhow, there was a guy on the rally running solo in an old Triumph. With no working odometer or speedo. He'd just follow someone for a while, then get bored and go blasting past down the road until he found someone else. Probably got DQ'd for not taking things seriously, but he had more fun than anyone else there.

nocones wrote: The CDC method is interesting. I wonder what there results look like running that. Its different and seems to address most of the apparent diferentiators of autox speed.

Sky_Render, Apexcarver, and a couple others on here run with CDC. You might PM them if they don't show up in this thread.

This is something my dad and I have been doing for the last two years, but just after the events on a few cars. We each had 3-4 targets, guys driving similar cars and we tracked how much faster they were so we could see if we were getting closer to them. A few nerds liked it but most guys eyes glaze over as soon as anything that sounds like math is uttered.

I'll out myself as one of the CDC organizers. We've tried a couple of different approaches and had much debate about the merits of SCCA, NASA, and other indexing methods. The main reason we went with our own was to make it easier for someone to class their car, not build to a class. We also collect SCCA PAX from anyone who supplies it and can compare indexed times using that.

A downside to the way we index is that some cars benefit more from where they fall in the increments of weight, horsepower, and tire type. For example, my MS Miata weighs just over 2500 lbs. and is just under 200 HP at the wheels, so it gets a better index than a car that weighs 2490 and has 205 HP. You could interpolate the index components, but how do you know the exact weight and horsepower a car has? Having weight increments of 500 lbs. and HP increments of 50 makes it simpler. We also don't account for suspension mods, but how do you fairly weigh the benefits of springs, shocks, and sways on a sliding scale. You could have categories of stock, street, and racing suspension, but where do you put the thresholds? It's too open to opinion.

Another issue is that we run on different sizes and shapes of lots, so course design sometimes favors handling or power. When it rains, AWD wins. We tried to hit the average, and it generally balances out over a season. It works well for us, but we're trying to be more about having fun and learning than all out competition.

The SCCA RTP/PAX is actually very good for comparing the drivers of cars that are equally well prepared to their respective rule set. So it's great for national level competition. For the local level events though, I too would love to see a good alternative indexing system devised.

While it might be able to be improved upon, or at least refined a bit, I think nocones does at least have an interesting concept to consider by essentially taking the cars out of the equation. I don't think that a perfect system exists, and I can definitely see some less than ideal aspects to this one too, but it does have a certain simple elegance to it that I find appealing. Like has been said, it's really just a more formalized system of benchmarking your times against the other drivers times and on a broader scale. I would be interested in seeing more of this system's strengths and weaknesses in action.

However, as good as their intentions are, in my humble opinion CDC has missed the mark. They are trying to over-simplify determining relative car performance by using too few, and inaccurately biased, performance factors to be able to make a valid comparison. As implemented, this system will heavily favor certain types of cars and give others a snowballs chance in hell...Regardless of how good the driver is.

The More I think about it the more I'm convinced this method would be a huge improvement to most small autocrosses. I don't know about NASA but the scca rules may work fine for big regional and national, but I've seen first hand how much they hurt the small clubs. I truly believe they are slowly choking the sport at the grassroots level and are a huge hindrance to the national growth of autocross.

In reply to Keith Tanner:Before urban sprawl moved decent rally roads and paths so far from town, TSD rallys were hugely popular. And many people who entered them also entered other auto related events, such as autocross as well.

In our SCCA Region TSD year end placing had equal weight with race placing & autocross placing in the end of the year Overall awards.

Different strokes for different folks.

As a local autocrosser without any aspirations to go "national" I'd like to see something a little more realistic for people who don't want to mod their car to the limit of the rules (which usually leaves one with a car that isn't very enjoyable to drive) or someone constantly searching for the "perfect" H stock car to take fullest advantage of the PAX multiplier.

One idea: have your local Stig/alien drive everyone's car around the same course on a given day and figure out your personal PAX from how far off the leader car speed yours is. (Top Gear power board style)

I know it won't work. That's why I focus on the raw time, pick someone I want to beat, and just have fun with it.

Hal wrote: Sounds similar to the system used by the Capital Driving Club in the DC area. It is all "run what you brung" and indexed on a couple factors. Seems to work for them as all their events are usually sold out.

Yep, I was about to say the same thing. I ran with CDC back in the day and I know they've "refined" the indexing setup a bit since then. In any case, people seem to like it a lot better than the billion SCCA classes. I'm sure there's a way you could game the CDC system if all you cared about was winning, but CDC members don't seem to be as much uber-win-at-all-costs as you find at a lot of SCCA events these days.

Keith, I found a way to have fun in a TSD rally. I navigated for a guy who showed up solo in an early XKE roadster (me and my brother, 12 and 13 years old, would occasionally get rented out by my dad). To make a long story short, we got UBER lost. I mean, lost by a consider number of orders of magnitude. What happens after that? You try to make up time, lots of time. That was FUN. Still remember it to this day.

Nocones, I think your idea is a good one. In the SCCA magazine, it talks about how some new participants want an experience without all out competition. This could create some of that with casual autocrossers.

KyAllroad wrote: As a local autocrosser without any aspirations to go "national" I'd like to see something a little more realistic for people who don't want to mod their car to the limit of the rules (which usually leaves one with a car that isn't very enjoyable to drive) or someone constantly searching for the "perfect" H stock car to take fullest advantage of the PAX multiplier. One idea: have your local Stig/alien drive everyone's car around the same course on a given day and figure out your personal PAX from how far off the leader car speed yours is. (Top Gear power board style) I know it won't work. That's why I focus on the raw time, pick someone I want to beat, and just have fun with it.

In reply to KyAllroad: I think that some of the new racers want to win more than have fun and socialize, that's part of why some will only race for a season or less and never do it again. I also think that many people, especially the inexperienced, think that they can buy a bunch of go-fast parts and get faster instead of spending money on more autocross events. G Stock, STS, and STF also have really good pax multipliers. STX has a good pax multiplier.