One thought on “8/11/2019 – Twin-25 Feature, 10-Kart Battle Royale SWEPT by Matt Stevens; Steals both from bro, Chris! [+YouTube]”

1. 

   Chrusher.Com

   08/19/2019, 7:22 am

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   Discussion over potential new handicap start rules – including a new one:
   As noted in the victory picture caption, our race start handicap system is usually extremely good at handicapping by (1) wins and (2) points to ensure that the race is going to be as competitive as possible. People who have won and scored the most points will always have the most work cut out for them by starting in the back, and the people who have won and scored the least need only to hold off people, which is usually how they learn how to take the track and be able to win.

   But little hiccups and caveats can and do occur, such as:

   • …not enough drivers show up so the same people who win a lot start near or even in the front (that’s just sad when that happens, and it HAS happened a handful of times in the past few years). That one can ONLY be solved by… *gasp* lost of drivers showing up on race day! (Which has been an on-again, off-again problem for the entire history of our racing club!
   • …some were drivers intentionally quitting and getting last whenever they didn’t actually win so that they would start up front and have a higher chance of winning the next race. To keep a little integrity to our handicap system, we handicapped by wins 1st, then by points. It was called, “The Gary Miller Sr. Rule.” 😛 This is one rule we had to create in the mid-2000s, which is why wins take higher precedent in the listings than points.

   So while this rule has significantly helped out competition… it seems as if now Matt and Chris seem to have hit opposite sides of this rule. For example:

   • Chris sometimes scores more points but less wins. Chris’ mindset going into each race is trying to win the Track Championship. So his goal is to get as high position as possible, especially getting into the top three spots to score as many bonus points as he can. His thinking is that he likes to win, but if he can’t win, he’s still going to net the most points in the long run and it’s nice to see different winners and his main goal is to always finish in front of Matt. This means he will pass when the opportunity presents itself, but he does not overdrive and rarely gets passed, and especially plays defense when Matt is behind him. So Chris would settle for 2nd instead of trying for 1st and getting 4th if his pass attempt failed and he got freight-trained. Chris has won a few track championships and not won very many features because he consistently scores in the top 3 every single race, even if he doesn’t win.
   • Matt scores more wins but sometimes less points. Matt’s mindset is win and damn his position or points. He’ll risk losing 2-4 spots to try and pitbull attack a win. He will risk getting freight-trained every lap. He scores more wins this way, but sacrifices points. He’ll pick up more wins than anybody annually, but sometimes his brother nips him in points. This often happens became he often times wins a race on the last lap, but can get outscored by people who consistently racked up a ton of pedestal bonus points all race. He has stolen wins on last-lap heroics on COUNTLESS drivers — go to our all-time list and probably every driver in the top 20 has had Matt steal at least one race from them on the final lap. His brother Chris is usually the best defender against this (Matt’s win percentage is in the 40-50% range, but when his brother is not on the track, that win percentage rises to a staggering 98%), but this week, Matt was able to steal another at the stripe, proving even he falls victim to it. Matt likes the glory of the win, BUT, as in any form of racing, people don’t like to see one driver win all the time and will begin to cheer for anybody to beat them. I believe this hurts our racing class, because people feel like they can never beat Matt. Proof is on the website — for over 20 years, he wins more than any driver in any race class in the area and probably points far beyond. So while Matt is a master of setting up karts to be extremely equal in speed, he’s also just as adept at beating everyone in those equally-matched karts. If he wins, people will think he rigged it (and quit racing), if he loses, people will think they finally were the one and only driver good enough to beat him once (and quit racing). A lose-lose for Matt, yes.

   With the handicap the way it is, Chris sometimes starts in front of people who he has more points than, just because he has less wins than them. So, this loophole rewards those who are consistently scoring points and penalizing those who sacrifice points for win.

   This had added drama to the Klassic 200 as well, as people can’t sandbag TOO much in the early going. Everyone wants to conserve fuel and drive system health, BUT, still want to score as many of those bonus points as they can as well. One can make a MASSIVE jump or a MASSIVE dive with their Klassic performance. It is, by far, the most important race of the year. Matt used to be happy driving in last place for the 1st 100 or so laps of the 200, but the bonus points counting in the Klassic means he can’t do that anymore… unless he doesn’t care about the track title.

   Because Matt has the same amount of wins (5) as everybody else combined (S. Sixberry with 2, while Chris, Josh and Adam all with 1 each = 5 total), AND Josh and Adam have only raced a partial season and still picked up wins… this the best I can come up with is this:

   • Those with 25% win percentage (or more) are still handicapped by total wins 1st, no matter their points.

   • Those with 24% win percentage (or less) are still handicapped by points-per-race first, then wins.

   • Those with 0 wins are still handicapped ahead of those with wins, no matter their points-per-race.

   This still assures Matt will start in the rear, BUT will help drivers like (for example) Steve, as he has 2 wins early on but his points-per-race has suffered greatly of late. However, Matt HAS to be handicapped for winning around 50% of the races when others win 0-20% tops… every… single… year. It actually should be the Matt Stevens rule, because his career wins are nonsensically high, and he should start dead last every single race no matter what to make things more interesting. He complains about Chris scoring more points than him sometimes, but he forgets that (1) he still has WAY more career wins and track championships than Chris and (2) Chris’ win percentage is tied for the highest of all other drivers EXCEPT Matt. Matt doesn’t need ANY handicapping help since — as he brags constantly about — he knows the track and karts better than anybody. So… he can come from last every week and not have a problem, then. 🙂

   See you next week!

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