How accurate is "timed" racing?

[pack529holycross]

Lane variances, track variances, starting gate variances, finish line location variances, and all other environmental factors slice into the reliability of "timed" racing ( in my opinion ).

And no one, IMO, has yet given any reason why these variances have to be accounted for to create fairness.

Why run on a track if "fair" is the best built car should win?

Test the wheels for friction and inertia, test the car for balance and CG, throw the numbers into the Derby Calculator. Fastest theoretical car wins!

"Best" car/runner/team does not make you a winner in competition.

But if the The accuracy of the finals is no greater than the accuracy of the preliminaries! For Finals to add accuracy, the times accrued during the preliminary racing must be included or the duration of the finals must be extended.

So the world series, Stanley cup, super bowl, etc, should all include regular season statistics in order to correctly determine the outcome and the present systems are "unfair" and "inaccurate"? Player/equipment performance variance should be accounted for?

I would say that regular season statistics come as a result of performance, and performance determines STARTING position when it comes to playoffs. Additionally, statistics ARE used when it comes to "tiebreakers" in determining STARTING position in playoff tournaments as well. SO in that sense, statistics, and the ACCURACY of statistics is CRITICAL to accurately set up the tournament initially..

Nicholas

[SlartyBartFast]

I would say that regular season statistics come as a result of performance

But does that measure of performance accurately account for and make allowances to account for player, team, and equipment game to game variances? </sarcasm>

Do you see my point?

[Stan Pope]

But Stan, what accounts for run to run variance? Let's face it, when you're timing to .001s it's dumb luck and a combination of factors outside the control of the carbuilder.

Think of racing cars against a clock as taking samples of each car's performance under these conditions. The "measurement tool" has an acceptable accuracy, The question is how many samples are needed before the average of the samples is close enough to the car's actual performance. An engineer with a micrometer probably only need one or two such measurements to describe the diameter of a particular part. He probably needs a lot more samples if he is measuring parts coming from a manufacturing process.

What causes run-to-run variance? A thousand little things. "In the long run" they will average out, but how long does the run need to be to express an average time with accuracy sufficent to accurately compare two competitors? Depends! Depends on each car's inherent speed and variance and on their relative speeds and on how accurate we wish the assessment to be, e.g. right 50% of the time, 70%, 90%. If we were racing every weekend or once a month 70% would probably be sufficient! Racing once a year, the bar should be higher!

And by what definition of sporting competition does fairness mean that the theoretical engineering calculations of which car SHOULD be fastest should determine the winner?

The question does not include assessing which should be the fastest based on engineering or other preparation factors. Rather the question is whether or not our measurement plan is adequate to eliminate enough noise that the results are representative of reality!

[SlartyBartFast]

Think of racing cars against a clock as taking samples of each car's performance under these conditions. The "measurement tool" has an acceptable accuracy, The question is how many samples are needed before the average of the samples is close enough to the car's actual performance.

Stan, the car's "actual performance" is the time for one single run or an average calculated on a previously defined number of runs.

Statistics are irrelevant.

Time trials exist in all manner of motor sport, cycling, and running. many in conditions that place horrendous obstacles in the way of competitors at different times. Skiing on a chewed up course or when the sun comes out, or the wind starts to blow. Rally racing when the roads turn to mud or the ruts become deeper than your tires. Running the 10th race of a track meet when your tired out and no longer at your peak.

Statistics and "possible maximum/average performance" is a mind game played off the field of competition.

[pack529holycross]

I would say that regular season statistics come as a result of performance

But does that measure of performance accurately account for and make allowances to account for player, team, and equipment game to game variances? </sarcasm>

Do you see my point?

Your point is that we should take into account environmental factors in the final win/loss tracking of an activity.

I dissagree - environmental issues are part of the nature of conducting a live competition event - anything can happen, and at the end of the day the first one down the track on THAT day with THAT track with THAT car with THOSE wheels wins... certainly we can all agree that if you re-ran the ENTIRE event that the outcome would be up for grabs equally with the first execution of the event. I like the term " any given sunday "

Nicholas

[SlartyBartFast]

Your point is that we should take into account environmental factors in the final win/loss tracking of an activity.

No my point is that Stan's position of looking to measure "true" performance is ridiculous.

We need to accurately define the conditions under which racing will and will not occur, measure the outcome of the races, and the run and judge the races fairly by applying the race format and rules as advertised.

No more, no less.

[Stan Pope]

my point is that Stan's position of looking to measure "true" performance is ridiculous.

This is not my position at all! My position is that we should not blindly define the conditions for racing without knowledge of the accuracy of the method. Rather we should take into consideration what we know (or should know) about the populations and define the racing conditions so that accuracy is as good as it can be within the operational constraints. And, if accuracy falls to close to "chance," we should review the operational constraints.

We need to accurately define the conditions under which racing will and will not occur, measure the outcome of the races, and the run and judge the races fairly by applying the race format and rules as advertised.

No more, no less.

We are almost in agreement ... I would revise as "We need to accurately define the conditions intelligently under which ..."

[SlartyBartFast]

But Stan, you're not defining what you consider accurate and your using accuracy interchangeably for several concepts.

Any method of elimination that doesn't allow one person to advance and one not with the same win/loss record is 100% accurate.

Fair, is you race on every lane, interesting is you race against everyone...

[Stan Pope]

But Stan, you're not defining what you consider accurate and your using accuracy interchangeably for several concepts.

Sorry, I have in the past used several definitions based on the situation of interest. They are detailed at http://members.aol.com/standcmr/pwmeval.html All deal with how correctly cars are ranked.

Any method of elimination that doesn't allow one person to advance and one not with the same win/loss record is 100% accurate.

I don't follow either the truth or the relevance of this.

Fair, is you race on every lane, interesting is you race against everyone...

Too tight a definition of "fair". Although opinions differ, "fair" to me implies that racer ranking is dictated only by the car's inherent speed and random chance. All decisions during racing that do not follow a rigid rule are determined by chance. An example of missing on "fairness" is when the starter decides which cars will occupy which lanes during an elimination race based on some unknown arbitrary process! Fairness on that count is restored by having the racers draw for lane in an observably random manner or by flip of a coin for lane choice (although I've seen some gamesmanship applied with lane choice that I prefer to avoid.)

Racing rules could call for the car with the lowest number to run in the left hand lane. Then one mus ask if the numbers were assigned by a random process totally devoid of possible manipulation. If so, then the scheme is "fair", but by combining so many decisions into one random event, the accuracy will suffer!

Here is an extreme case of "fair" which lacks accuracy and is not interesting at all: A race was held on a track that turned out to be so rough that none of the cars could run on it and was incompatible with the sizes of the cars! Cars were entered into a double elimination chart in a random (fair) fashion. As each pair of cars was brought up to race, the starter held up a tin of tokens that were identical except that one said "1st" and the other said "2nd". The boys drew blind from the tin and the race result was recorded according to the token drawn. The boys take their cars back to the pit and "racing" continues with the next pair! It is "fair" (to my view) in that all decisions during racing were made in an unbiased manner. It was terribly inaccurate and about as interesting as watching mud harden in the sun.

Had I been responsible for that I'd have succeeded in only one of my three goals: fair - yes; accurate - no; and interesting / fun - no.

[RMoose]

On the subject of accuracy, here is an interesting situation we had this year in our race. Take a look at the times for the top two finishers in one of our groups:

Code: Select all

Car A      Car B

3.1182     3.0680
3.0294     3.0774
3.0256     3.0885
3.0668     3.0756
3.1443     3.1173
3.0602     3.1140

Average times for Car A were 3.0741 and for Car B 3.0901. We had 7 cars in this group, so each car got to race all the others.

Now, can you tell from the times who was 1st and who was 2nd in our race?

Here's a hint, we didn't race by times, but by points. One of these cars went 6-0 and the other 5-1.

What do you think?

If you guessed Car B went 6-0 and finished first you were right! In their head-to-head race he beat Car A to take 1st place.

Harder question, was this outcome accurate?

[3 Cub Dad]

Here's a hint, we didn't race by times, but by points. One of these cars went 6-0 and the other 5-1.

What do you think?

If you guessed Car B went 6-0 and finished first you were right! In their head-to-head race he beat Car A to take 1st place.

Harder question, was this outcome accurate?

RMoose,

That is a hard question. My personal answer would be: "fair"? - yes, "accurate"? - no.

"fair", because that is the way the race was set up to be run, and everyone had the same opportunity or chance, and it just happened that car B had one of it's better runs when car A had one of it's poorer runs.

"Accurate" - I wouldn't really agree with. It sounds like from your description that you were running on a 2-lane track. Correct? That's kind of the problem with that number of cars and trying to determine finish order based off of one race. With 7 cars on a four lane track, the statistics work out for every car to race each other car 2 times and each car runs once in each lane. Two things would have happened. Either car B would have beaten car A 2 times, in which case you would have to agree that it was accurate, or they could have split. In that case, you end up with a tie, and you could have a race off.

I've never been a personal fan of two lane tracks.

[Stan Pope]

The situation is made all the harder by the much higher variance in the times for Car A. In fact Car A's run-to-run variance is so high that it is difficult to claim that either method would produce accurate results with so few runs.

BTW, the times make it look much more like a three-lane track with very distinct lane differences!

[gpraceman]

Code: Select all

Car A      Car B

3.1182     3.0680
3.0294     3.0774
3.0256     3.0885
3.0668     3.0756
3.1443     3.1173
3.0602     3.1140

Average times for Car A were 3.0741 and for Car B 3.0901. We had 7 cars in this group, so each car got to race all the others.

Can you indicate what lane each of these times are from?

[3 Cub Dad]

BTW, the times make it look much more like a three-lane track with very distinct lane differences!

7 cars, 6 races, raced each competitor only once, Car B 6-0, Car A 5-1, could be a 3 lane track, but only if they use 2 lanes at a time!

[joe]

Or these times could be the result of a manually pulled starting gate. In which case the races would be both fair and accurate since the racers were using points in head-to-head competition, and not using cumulative times to determine placing.
The variability in times would be partially a measure of who was pulling the gate, and how quickly and consistently it was pulled. In my opinion, a big strike against using cumulative times in determining a winner.