The
top 10 riders accumulate the most points, get all the endorsements and attract
all the attention and the rest struggle to be a player in this game.
Fans
know that you can have a great ride and still lose a race. They also know
that less than your best is sometimes good enough to take the checkered
flag. A quick look at practice times will illustrate the point so the
conclusion becomes obvious; it’s all about the start but some riders carry an
unfair advantage – apparently this race to the holeshot is fought in the off season with
the stroke of a pen. But what if we could take the start out of the
equation, neutralize track times and completely ignore the final results?
Could we still score a race? The thought intrigued me.
Supercross
is a very unique sport in that guys like you or me, well maybe not me, have the
opportunity to compete against the best in the world, however given the
disparity in the support received by such riders is it any surprise that the
marginal rider rarely finds himself on the podium. So I asked myself; is
winning or losing really an accurate measure of a riders’ performance?
Should it be when some riders possess superior equipment, testing and training
capabilities? Track times are relevant in the context of racing
but without further analysis they won't accurately measure the performance of
the rider himself. Furthermore, the track conditions and personal effort put
forth in a main event is far more intense than in practice and the line between
control and utter chaos can be very different from rider to rider plus the level
of competition at each race can differ. All this led me to believe that
we, the fans, could benefit from a holistic approach to evaluating our favorite
riders.
Teams
with the deepest pockets have an enormous advantage. The training tools
they have available are no match for the privateer but when it's all said and
done it comes down to one thing; performance. Inspired by sabermetrics I
decided to look to statistical analysis to help answer some of these nagging
questions. If I could level the playing field and discount performance to
its common equivalent, then I could create a set of statistics ideal for head-to-head
evaluations, regardless of engine displacement, factory rider or privateer. This is precisely what I
set out to do when I created the Cross Linear Action Wave or what I like to
refer to as the ROOST’R CLAW™
The
Roost’r CLAW started as just an idea for bringing Supercross to my
desktop and built around equal participation, sort of like the Monster Energy Cup all year. If you’re anything like me, attending one race a year just isn’t
enough and as a fan I wanted another way to participate. The fantasy
games I ran across use box scores as the basis for scoring so there was no way
of getting around the redundancy so often found in racing; it became a contest
of picking winners and losers against opponents with similar teams. I
concluded that scoring based on box scores will always have one inherent flaw
and that is it will always be biased in favor of the point leaders and players
will, to a large degree, gravitate to the point leaders.
This
frustration led me to develop my own scoring system that ignores box scores,
neutralizes timing, and normalizes 250 and 450 riders at the same time.
After many hours of laboring over my spreadsheets and studying video I noticed
patterns emerge. Calling on my experiences with applied mathematics and
stochastic volatility I’ve come up with a system for scoring a riders’
individual performance. I was focused on everything but the final result. Using only the available information I first build a
base sequence for each rider, then apply a set of functions to extract what I
call a "TRAP" score. From these results I'm able to create a
unique set of scores that are as dynamic as the riders themselves.
I’ve
decided to create my own games using these scores, one in particular I
call Roost’r
Trap®. The
Roost'r Trap is a unique collection of scores arranged in, well a trap. It's a collection of scores arranged in a way
perfect for head-to-head gaming, and can be wildly unpredictable. It
demands knowledge of the riders and their abilities, requires the player to
understand the dynamics of a race, takes some luck too, after
all this is Supercross and it has nothing to do with box scores.
The
concept refers to some complex mathematical theories but the results are
actually quite simple. I’ll continue to refine the system and at some
point I hope to create an app.
Roostrtrap.com is still under construction but should be active by round
1 if you’d like to check in to see how it’s going. I’ll have diagrams available in my next post
so you can see some scoring samples.
Feel free to comment or find me on Twitter at @COdirtlife, you can also contact me directly at dirtlife.colorado@gmail.com. Focus on the right numbers and Supercross will evolve for pros and fans alike. The countdown has started so stay tuned...
The Roost'r
