About The Spotters' Stand

Racing statistics have never been especially impressive.  Qualifying position, laps lead, and finishing position are the most common stats, and have remained unchanged since auto racing began in the early 1900s.  We know where a driver started, if (s)he lead, and where (s)he finished, but very little information about what happened during the race is available to fans.  The only ‘new’ racing statistics discussed by most measure the average length of a green flag run, or the average lap of the last caution flag at a given track.

Advanced statistics are available for baseball, basketball, football, and hockey.  It’s time for racing to catch up.  Racing has the foundations for these stats in place.  Some series make lap charts available to the public.  These show each car’s position at the end of a lap and can be used to determine when a driver gained or lost a position.  Tracks also have timing lines placed around the track that can measure a driver’s time through a small portion of the track.  These sector times are available to the public, and could be used for creation of advanced racing statistics.  Some sites, like nasportscar.com, have been publishing timing data for sports car racing.  I find this type of information fascinating and plan to produce similar data for IndyCar. 

Ultimately, I’d love to see advanced racing statistics become common when discussing racing.  These would give fans a way to objectively compare drivers and tracks, and may even help to identify talented young drivers.  In the short term I want to provide a different view of racing statistics, specifically IndyCar, than what is available in other forms of media.

I'm a financial analyst living in the triangle region of North Carolina.  My love of IndyCar was cemented when I was allowed to skip school to attend the rain delayed Indy 500 in 1997.  Ever since reading Moneyball, I've felt that racing needed improved statistics.  I decided to do something about it in February 2015.