Through the years of NASTE, and with the HO club I was involved with in the 80's, I've experimented with various scoring systems for point series racing. My first question is; what would be the reason to change to a different point system?
I finally settled on, and stayed with the current system for a few reasons. 1. It is one of the easiest systems to use for scoring. 2. It is one of the fairest systems of scoring. A racer gets 1 point for every other racer he beats in a race. At the end of the season a racer's score tells the whole story. Their total is exactly how many other racers they beat in races to win the championship. 3. A racer gets more points for wins where the race had more competitors he had to beat. 4. In a race where the top finishers are basically the only racers to score points, a racer can achieve the exact same number of points for a win where they only have to beat say 6 other racers, as a racer who has to beat 20 other racers. The points have no equality in relation to the number of competitors in any given race. 5. If a competitor has a bad race and falls below the point cut off of the top finishers, he loses more points to the leader. I.e. let's say the points leader finishes 9th in a field of 12, he only gets 1 point, same as 10th through 12th, but he still beat three other racers. 6. And lastly, I have NEVER seen where scoring differently for a point series has ever made a difference in the outcome! I have had racers question the scoring systems I have used in the past. At the end of the season I have re-scored the entire championship, ALL the races, and re-totalled the finish. It has NEVER made a difference in the final outcome. The point totals may come out different, but the racer that won still always won. The biggest difference was in how close the point totals were. Some may question that, but I challenge anyone to go back through a season, re-assign the points using other values, and re-tabulate the finish scores. No matter how you count it the winners still win regardless of the total numbers.
To me what makes a little more sense is to allow racers to throw out one or two races each season. This brings the point totals in closer and gives racers a chance to recover if they have a really bad race, or just plain miss a race.
With all that said, I am not opposed to using a different numbering system. Just tell me what you guys want and I'll be happy with it.