The Pit Stall

This is the third part of the Nascar Pool Help series.   Part 1   Part 2

Now that you’ve decided the set-up and scoring method your pool will use, your next task is formalizing some rules, and inviting people to participate in your pool.  This is probably the first time you’ll need to put something on paper (or the internet). 

You’ll want to describe in detail how your pool will be run.  The rules regarding how drivers (or cars) are selected and how scoring is calculated are the most important.  The rest isn’t important unless people understand what they’re getting into.  Also add payment amounts, deadlines, and methods, and the general payout structure, or at least a date when it will be announced.  Make sure you have someone else examine it for mistakes, or things you may have overlooked.  Add a second page to the rules which will have your groups, or your selection information, and can be used as the entry form, if you’re accepting teams offline.  Include a spot for team name and whatever contact information is necessary.  If you plan on only having people make their selections online, you wont need the entry sheet, but giving people the information to make their selections is a good idea.  If you plan to use some pre-made pool set-up like Yahoo!, you can pretty much just skip rules altogether as they have an extensive list on their site.  You can just add the payment info on the invitation emails.

Once you’ve decided on rules and prepared some sort of document (I generally like to convert them to PDF format, since the reader software is freely available), you’ll need to round up some participants.  Make a list of friends, co-workers or associates that you know are Nascar fans.  Then make a list of those people that you know are generally up for pretty much any type of fantasy sports.  Give each one of them the info about your pool, and invite them to participate, either by email, a phone call or even better, in person.  Encourage them to invite their Nascar fan friends.  The larger your pool is, and the bigger the payout gets, the more casual the fan you’ll get to participate, as they’re more interested in the prize than the actual pool.
 
Growing your pool wont happen overnight, but if you make your rules easy to follow, make your results easy to access and most importantly keep everything transparent, you should have no problem experiencing growth through several seasons.  Even the largest pools had modest beginnings.  I’m in a pool for another sport that has close to 500 teams, only a few years removed from having less than 50.  Make your pool both affordable and fun, and people will want to share it with others.

Filed under: Nascar Pool Help, Site by Site Admin - Thursday, January 7th, 2010
No Comments

This is the second part of the Nascar Pool Help series.   Part 1

Once you’ve decided to start your own fantasy Nascar pool, you’ll need to decide what type of pool to run.    The are plenty of options, and your choice may depend on the number and type of participants in your pool.  Are you aiming for only the most hardcore fans, or even the most casual?  Your choice may also limit the number of participants in the future.
 
The basic types of pools you can run are pick’em, box and salary cap.  You can run all sorts of variations on these types, but generally most set ups come down to one of the three.  

Pick’em - Pick your drivers (or cars) from race to race.  Can be any number of groups to pick from, and rules about how many times you can take a driver.  Can be pre-picked at the start of the season (usually one driver per race), or before a deadline each race.  This type of pool requires participants to put a little more effort in if they want to be successful. 

Box - Pick your drivers (or cars) from boxes or groups, one from each box.  The number of boxes, and drivers per box will change from pool to pool.  Generally these types of pools are the easiest to pick, and tend to grow the largest, since they don’t require alot of effort and can be selected quite easily by even the most casual fan.  They are usually season long pools, and can feature a limited number of trades. 

Salary Cap - Each driver (or car) is given a value, based on previous performance and popularity.  Pick a selected number of drivers, while keeping the total salary of your team under the selected total value.  These pools generally run season long, and can feature a limited number of trades.
 
Some people also run their pools more like a lottery, so anyone can participate whether or not they follow Nascar.  Usually run just for one race (although several ‘pools’ do them all season long), basically everyone draws a number from 1-43, and they get the car that starts in that position.  The highest finishing car wins the pot.

Once you’ve decided on what type of pool to run, you’ll also need to choose some sort of scoring system.  You can use the tiered points system that Nascar uses for each race, or you can make up your own based on pretty much anything you want.  You can even have some sort of ‘Chase’ reset if you desire.  It’s probably best to keep it as straightforward as possible, so it’s not that difficult for participants to figure out what their scores should be each race.

So there’s your next step in setting up your Nascar pool.  Again I want to stress to keep in mind the type of participant you want to draw, and the size you want your pool to be when choosing the details of your fantasy Nascar league.  The more people you want to draw, the more straighforward you’ll want to make it.  If you want it to be a smaller tight-knit group of the same 20-30 people year after year, by all means make it as complicated as you like.  Maybe even set up a scoring system that you’d like to see adapted in the Cup series, and see how things would shake out.

Filed under: Nascar Pool Help, Site by Site Admin - Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
1 Comment

This is the first part of the Nascar Pool Help series.

The first step in getting a fantasy Nascar league up and running, is deciding you want to manage one.  Office pools for any sport can be a lot of fun, if promoted and managed properly, and we want to help you make your Nascar pool be successful as possible.  
 
Before jumping head-long into being the commissioner of your very own Nascar pool, you’ll need to make sure you meet some basic criteria.  First off, and this should go without saying, you need to be a Nascar fan.  A decent group of friends and associates that share your love of the sport will also be key in getting your league off of the ground.  You’ll also need to possess decent organization skills, and be trust-worthy.  You’ll most likely be dealing with holding on to a decent amount of other people’s hard earned money, so being transparent and making sure everything is above board and accounted for is of utmost importance. 
 
As I mentioned earlier, a group of Nascar fans is important in getting your pool started.  Whether it’s a group of friends that like to get together to watch the big races of the season, or a bunch of co-workers looking to add a little competition to the ‘water-cooler’ discussion, a good base of interested participants will be vital in starting and growing your league.  Here at Nascar Pools Online, we also have pools organized by bars, websites and garages.  They can be a great way to draw some attention to your business, whether online or the traditional brick and mortar type. 
 
Keep in mind, that no matter the size of your league, whether you keep track of everything on paper or use a website like Nascar Pools Online, there will be some amount of work required.  Depending on the style of pool you manage, how you decide to keep track of results, and how you’re tracking payments, will be the determining factors in how much time you’ll spend.  Time will be required in the pre-season rounding up participants, gathering payments and making sure everyone knows the rules of your pool, regardless of what kind of pool you choose to run. 
 
A couple things you should also look into before you get started is the legality of office pools in your area.  Different states and provinces have different gaming laws.  We here at NPO don’t pretend to be lawyers, so we suggest you find out what is and isn’t allowed in your home province or state, before you set up your pool.  Most of this information can be found online with a little effort.  Also, if you’re running an inter-office league, you may want to check your company’s policies on fantasy sports and office pools.  Better safe than sorry. 

The hardest part of building a large, successful office pool in any sport, is getting it started.  Make your pool enjoyable for those involved from the start, and you’ll have no problem growing it.  As always, if you have questions, feel free to drop us a line.  We wish you the best in getting your Nascar pool started this season!

Filed under: Nascar Pool Help, Site by Site Admin - Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
No Comments

Since we started Nascar Pools Online, we’ve received a number of questions about starting, and managing NASCAR pools.  I’ve personally run a number of pools myself, not just in NASCAR but several other sports as well, plus I’ve participated in numerous others.  Not to mention, I’ve communicated with several of the people that run their pools on NPO the past couple seasons.  My goal is to take some of that knowledge and experience, to help you get your pool up and running or improve on it.

To get started, we will be posting a series on getting a pool started. Some of what will be covered:  Who should start a NASCAR pool, why you might want to run a pool, who you want in your league and how big should it be, what type of format/scoring your league should be, and what are some of the issues you may come across along the way.  We’ll follow that up with some ongoing tips from people that actually run NASCAR pools and then try to answer any questions you might have on a regular basis.  We’ll then take a look at the different types of pool formats and how to be successful in each.  Along the way we’ll try to post other online resources to help you.  Towards the beginning of the season, we will highlight a number of pools on NPO that are looking for more participants.

So if you’ve ever thought about starting a fantasy Nascar pool and didn’t know where to start, this series is for you.  If you’ve been running a pool for a while now, and want to grow or improve your pool, this series is also for you.  If you’re an avid fantasy Nascar participant, you should find this series informative, and possibly helpful in finding Nascar pools to suit your time/budget/commitment levels.

We will start working our way through the main part of the series in the next few days and try to wrap it up by early January at the latest, so you can be prepared to get things up and running with a month to go before the season.  After that we’ll try to do regular updates to cover the questions and tips.

If you have a question, leave it in the comments, or feel free to send it directly to us instead.

Filed under: Nascar Pool Help, Site by Site Admin - Monday, December 7th, 2009
No Comments

The long and grueling Sprint Cup season has finally come to an end, and my weekends seem a little empty now.  I was talking to a friend on Saturday night and he posed the question, “What do we do tomorrow with no race?”  I hadn’t really even considered it until then.  I guess I watch football, or play some Nascar 09 on the PS3, or maybe even get a head start on getting the site prepped for 2010.  Before that, I best recap the season that was for my ‘Redneck This’ team on Yahoo Fantasy Sports.

It was easily my best season in Yahoo Fantasy Nascar.   Those of you that followed along in the early season, saw I had my team rolling and was in the 99th percentile and hovering around the top 1000.  Amazingly enough, I was able to do that without buring out any of my driver allotments.  At the end of the Spring Segment I had a 260 point lead on second place.  In the summer I kept cruising, besting the next highest competitor in my pool by 378.  The fall was another story but I still managed to take over the top spot on the last week by 18 points.  In the end I won my second straight title in that league by a comfortable 715 point margin.

In the grande scheme of the yahoo overall, the team finished in the 99th percentile, besting my 98th from the prior season, and was 467th overall.  Had I avoided Dale Jr all season, I probably would have finished higher still.

Speaking of Junior, he killed me in my money league.  It was a straight box type pool, that you select at the start of the season.  Trades are available under certain circumstances, but if you need a trade, you don’t have a shot to win anyways.  Needless to say, poor performance by Junior was the only reason this league was even close, and I ended up losing by a whopping 3 points (basically 3 positions on the track).  Marcos Ambrose cutting a tire while leading at Miami didn’t exactly help the cause either.  Ah well…I’m happy with second place (out of over 175).  It was a nice little improvement on the 5th or 6th from the previous year.  Hopefully I can keep this little run of ‘luck’ going into 2010.

All in all it was a fun and profitable season, and I’m definitely looking forward to February and doing it all over again.  Over the off-season, I’m going to make some changes to the way I do pit picks, possibly making it a bit more general (not specific to the yahoo format), and covering multiple races at a time.  I hope all of you did well in your respective leagues, and I look forward to hearing from some of you again soon!  Have a great holiday and see you all in Feb!!

Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR

Filed under: Pit Picks by Site Admin - Monday, December 7th, 2009
No Comments

"Does anyone know where I can find a 8' by 11' sheet of Bristol Board?"

If you’re leading a race with 10 to go, is there anyone you’d like to see behind you more than Mark Martin?  He’s probably the one guy on the track that you know will race you clean and not put you into a wall or spin you to get the win.  It was a great race by both Kyle Busch, and Martin, at a time when they really needed it.  Martin moved up to 10th spot, only 60 points clear of the 13th place Busch, who is now only 34 points out of that important 12th position.  Atlanta and New Hampshire should be interesting with so many drivers near the cut off. 

Group 2 – Denny Hamlin (5), Sliced Bread(8), Dale Earnhardt Jr (6), Kurt Busch(4)

My Group B drivers were solid again this week, with 3 of the 4 posting top 10s.  Unfortunately I started the one that didn’t (Logano), and a stellar week was downgraded to good as a result.  After a solid qualifying effort, Logano got rear ended by Dave Blaney (this is what happens when start and parkers stay on the track), and not long after blew a tire, and spent the rest of the night with a damaged race car.  Hamlin was my other start, and he didn’t disappoint, coming from the back to finish 5th.  A couple more short tracks on the schedule guarantee a couple more Hamlin starts.  Earnhardt followed up his 3rd at Michigan with another top 10 (9th), easily his best back to back result all season.  Kurt Busch also scored a top 10, coming across the stripe in 7th position.  I’m liking where I sit with regards to starts down the stretch…and am already starting to plan out who I’m going to run where.

Group 3 – Scott Speed(8), Sam Hornish Jr(5)

Speed followed up his second best qualifying effort of the season, with his second best finish.  The decent result (15th)trimmed the gap Speed needs to make up to get into the top 35 to 115 points.  I definitely think that is doable over the final 12 races, to guarantee the #82 a  spot in the first 5 races of 2010.  The fact he put up a top 15 at a tough track like Bristol should give him a little bit of confidence down the stretch, as he, like Logano will be visiting alot of tracks for the second time.  Hornish was in the top 20 for alot of the race, but got mixed up in a wreck, when some cars ahead of him checked up.  Not long after that, he over-heated and finished 35th.  A big disappointment, as no doubt several people picked him after a few solid runs recently.

Recap

• Points for this race: 289 (Ky Busch, Hamlin, Logano, Speed)
• Most Possible Points: 372 (Martin (Biffle qual), Hamlin, Ku Busch, Ambrose (Speed qual))
• Season Points : 6856
• Current Place : 1st
• Lead over 2nd : 697
• Overall Percentile : 99th (1907 overall) 

Photo Credit: Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR

Filed under: Pit Picks, Short Tracks by Site Admin - Monday, August 24th, 2009
No Comments

Another Michigan race, another fuel mileage snafu by the #48 team with Jimmie Johnson at the helm.  You gotta think that after they gave away a race in June, they’d know better than to gamble in August.  Especially when they had the best car in the field, and with all of the room to pass at this track.  This time it wasn’t a team mate that took the checkers…it was former team mate Brian Vickers getting the first ever win for the Red Bull team. 

Group 2 – Dale Earnhardt Jr(6), Brian Vickers(4), Sliced Bread(9), Kasey Kahne(4)

Vickers had one heck of a weekend.  Second in the Nationwide race, a Coors Light Pole Award, and to top it off, the first Sprint Cup series victory for the Red Bull Toyota team.  Mind you, he had a little help from a couple teams and their fuel mileage calculations, but still a great weekend.  Junior’s squad was sure not to gamble on fuel and it paid off with a 3rd place finish.  It was his first top 10 since the Talladega race in April.  It had to feel good for a team that’s been reeling for a while now.  Logano nailed down his 5th top 10 of the season with a 7th place finish, and still looks like a good option down the stretch, especially if you’ve run out of starts on your big guns.  Kahne rounded out a solid week by all of my picks in this group with an 11th place finish.

Group 3 – Brad Keselowski(7), AJ Allmendinger(4)

Both Keselowsking and Allmendinger finished just outside the top 20, and neither woulda hurt the squad for the week.  I’m glad I tabbed the Michigan native and saved a ‘Dinger start for down the stretch, and it didn’t cost me anything.

Recap

• Points for this race: 302 (Biffle, Earnhardt Jr, Vickers, Keselowski)
• Most Possible Points: 394 (Gordon (Martin qual), Vickers, Earnhardt Jr (Montoya qual), Hornish Jr)
• Season Points : 6567
• Current Place : 1st
• Lead over 2nd : 692
• Overall Percentile : 99th (2365 overall) 

Photo Credit: Jason Smith/Getty Images

Filed under: Intermediates, Pit Picks by Site Admin - Thursday, August 20th, 2009
No Comments