The pool is closed! Thank you to all who participated. I'll post collected picks, for convenience, in a minute.

We had 16 entrants for this first pool event (insert comment about car counts here). All but one managed to correctly follow the rules regarding the groups. Below, the picks:

EarlofSpeed: Briscoe, Doornbos, Meira, Moraes

eagledale: Dixon, Andretti, Rahal, Matos

HighPlainsDrifter: Power, Doornbos, Rahal, Matos

AutoRacer5: Power, Doornbos, Viso, Matos

Spin: Dixon, Andretti, Rahal, Matos

indychic317: Dixon, Doornbos, Meira, Matos

Merlin1976: Power, Doornbos, Hunter-Reay, Matos

JohnMc: Dixon, Wheldon, Hunter-Reay, Carpenter

jes_: Kanaan, Wheldon, Viso, Conway

bmw_williams_13: Power, Doornbos, Tagliani, Moraes

canuck1: Briscoe, Doornbos, Hunter-Reay, Moraes

FASTRACK: Patrick, Power, *Dixon, *Doornbos
*: Repeated within a group. These picks will not count! I PM'd the member...

BJWilliams: Dixon, Andretti, Rahal, Manning

PeterNut: Power, Doornbos, Rahal, Conway

Rand: Franchitti, Doornbos, Tagliani, Moraes

smuff76: Briscoe, Doornbos, Wilson, Manning

The race is over, and the results are in! Thank you to all who participated, and congratulations to the top scorers in the first race: smuff76, canuck1, and EarlofSpeed. Here are some facts of note:

-The best possible selection was Briscoe, Doornbos, Hunter-Reay, and Manning, for a total of 133 points. smuff76 just missed that, going for Wilson (who still finished 3rd!) over RH-R.
-The worst possible selection was Dixon, Patrick, Viso, and most anyone from group D, for a total of 51. Luckily no one was too close to that one...
-The trend seems to be (in my opinion at least) that any score over 100 is pretty good. Only the top three got that many today.
-Drivers in Group C did very well, with two on the podiim (RHR and Wilson) and only one, Viso, outside the top 10. By contrast, no one in group B finished in the top 10!
-Indycar points are pretty top-heavy (remember, every driver gets 12 just for starting), so picking someone from, say, the top 5 can really help.
-These results and probably some more will be posted at students.cec.wustl.edu/~bpd1/ICSPool.html, probably on Tuesday when I have easy access to it.

Without any further ado, here are the results:

smuff76: Briscoe, Doornbos, Wilson, Manning
130
canuck1: Briscoe, Doornbos, Hunter-Reay, Moraes
121
EarlofSpeed: Briscoe, Doornbos, Meira, Moraes
103
Merlin1976: Power, Doornbos, Hunter-Reay, Matos
99
PeterNut: Power, Doornbos, Rahal, Conway
86
HighPlainsDrifter: Power, Doornbos, Rahal, Matos
86
Rand: Franchitti, Doornbos, Tagliani, Moraes
83
BJWilliams: Dixon, Andretti, Rahal, Manning
82
JohnMc: Dixon, Wheldon, Hunter-Reay, Carpenter
82
bmw_williams_13: Power, Doornbos, Tagliani, Moraes
79
AutoRacer5: Power, Doornbos, Viso, Matos
72
jes_: Kanaan, Wheldon, Viso, Conway
71
Spin: Dixon, Andretti, Rahal, Matos
70
eagledale: Dixon, Andretti, Rahal, Matos
70
indychic317: Dixon, Doornbos, Meira, Matos
67
FASTRACK: Power, Patrick
40

Not bad considering I thought I would wind up at the bottom of the table but I got a Top 10 finish in the pool

bduddy will the points carry onto Long Beach and will the groups stay the same or change for Long Beach???

The points will be added over the season, and there will be a champion at the end.
As for the groups, I can't say anything for sure until the Long Beach entry list comes out-I will try to shuffle things around to maintain equal group numbers. But for now, I'm pretty satisfied with them: there was, in general, a good mix of picks, and the guys that were picked by a lot of participants (Doornbos, Matos) didn't really perform out of the ordinary at all. I'll try not to make many changes unless I see some long-term trends that differ from what might be expected from the groups.

Also note that, for Long Beach and all races thereafter, you cannot pick the same driver twice in a row. This is my attempt to try to forestall some of the monotony that, in my opinion, sometimes affects the NASCAR pool.

bduddy - 05 April 2009 06:53 PM

The points will be added over the season, and there will be a champion at the end.
As for the groups, I can't say anything for sure until the Long Beach entry list comes out-I will try to shuffle things around to maintain equal group numbers. But for now, I'm pretty satisfied with them: there was, in general, a good mix of picks, and the guys that were picked by a lot of participants (Doornbos, Matos) didn't really perform out of the ordinary at all. I'll try not to make many changes unless I see some long-term trends that differ from what might be expected from the groups.

Also note that, for Long Beach and all races thereafter, you cannot pick the same driver twice in a row. This is my attempt to try to forestall some of the monotony that, in my opinion, sometimes affects the NASCAR pool.

Awesome man. Well I got some work to do in order to move myself up to the Top 5 and then try to challenge for top spot.

thanks for your initiative.
It gave an extra sensation at the race today.

I cant keep flying in from europe though, so dont make it a close finish....

I should of waited longer before I picked. I would have most certainly taken Manning over Moraes. But,my fault and will wait longer at Long Beach. Great job Smuff and thanks Bduddy!

2 for 2........

EarlofSpeed - 06 April 2009 07:51 AM

I should of waited longer before I picked. I would have most certainly taken Manning over Moraes. But,my fault and will wait longer at Long Beach. Great job Smuff and thanks Bduddy!

Can you believe he did that good? I knew he's good at road courses but I had no idea he'd do that good from the jump w/ a new team. Def picking him for Long beach.