…or, How I Won The Daytona 500 And Was 15th In The Points
NASCAR has decided, in the infinite wisdom that had it increase the number of points the race winner received after too many people complained that if the second-place driver led the most laps, he would get as many points as the winner, that each race will be divided into three “segments”, with points available at the end of each segment.
The first two segments of each are supposed to be anywhere from 1/4 to 1/3 of the race distance, and will end with a competition caution; the top 10 drivers at the end of each segment get 10, 9, 8, and so on down to 1, points. Note that the first two segments can end under yellow; Green-White-Checkered still applies for the end of the race. Also note that “crossed flags” (the point where, if the race is interrupted and cannot be restarted that day, it is declared over) has been moved from the halfway point to the end of the second segment.
The end-of-race points have also been tweaked; it is now 40 for first, 35 for second, then 34, 33, and so on down to 2 for 35th, and 1 each for 36th through 40th. (I sort of like this one; there’s less of a penalty for finishing last because of an early crash or your engine gave out on you.)
There are no more points for leading a lap, or the most laps.
But wait - there’s more!
The points carried over into the Chase have also changed; instead of 3 for a win, it is now 5 for a win, plus 1 for each segment win. Also, the top 10 in the regular season standings after 26 races get additional “bonus points”; 15, 10, 8, 7, 6, and so on down to 1. I am assuming that the points leader gets 15, with the other places in order of most wins (and most points as a tiebreaker).
Also, these bonus points carry over into the second and third rounds of the Chase, and additional bonus points can be earned in Chase races. The only time they don’t apply is to the top four at Homestead - it’s still, the top four places in the final standings are based on the order in which they finish the final race.
Also, the two qualifying races for the Daytona 500 will each award 10 points for first, 9 for second, and so on (but no Chase bonus points.)
Because of this, it is possible for the winner of the Daytona 500 to be in 15th place in the standings after the race. Here’s an example - the second through 15th place drivers in the 500 can do as follows:
Duel / Seg 1 / Seg 2 / Race / Total
a1 (10) 1 (10) 14 (0) 10 (27) 47
a3 (8) 9 (2) 10 (1) 2 (35) 46
b3 (8) 11 (0) 6 (5) 4 (33) 46
b5 (6) 3 (8) 4 (7) 13 (24) 45
b8 (3) 4 (7) 1 (10) 14 (23) 43
a7 (4) 10 (1) 8 (3) 3 (34) 42
a2 (9) 12 (0) 9 (2) 6 (31) 42
a6 (5) 2 (9) 13 (0) 9 (28) 42
b2 (9) 7 (4) 7 (4) 12 (25) 42
b7 (4) 13 (0) 2 (9) 8 (29) 42
a8 (3) 5 (6) 11 (0) 5 (32) 41
a5 (6) 6 (5) 12 (0) 7 (30) 41
a4 (7) 14 (0) 3 (8) 11 (26) 41
b1 (10) 8 (3) 5 (6) 15 (22) 41
The numbers, from left to right, are, place in one of the two Daytona Duals (“a” and “b” indicate which one of the two), place in the first segment of the 500, place in the second segment of the 500, final place in the 500, and points; numbers in parentheses are the points earned in each step. If the winner does not finish in the top 10 in his duel or in either of the first two segments of the 500, he gets 40 points (remember, no bonus point for leading any laps), which puts him in 15th. It may be possible to finish as low as 17th, but I haven’t found any results that have more than 14 drivers end up with more than 40 points.