- 11,581
- Intercourse, PA
- Carbonox
Nominate and discuss your favorite anomalies and other oddities in the wide world of motorsports. I usually have great fun exploring these.
Some of the examples I came up with when I last had nothing else to do:
- Alex Zanardi's 1998 CART season was perhaps one of the most dominant in series history, winning the title by 116 points over 2nd place en route to a failed F1 career. Something was missing though - in that entire year he never once qualified on the pole. Made even odder by the fact he certainly had qualifying prowess the previous two years, but somehow never made it to the front spot over a single lap this time.
- Two years later, Gil de Ferran won the title with 168 points in 20 races - that's an average of 8.4 points per race, just above 6th place. A fairly typical average finish for a NASCAR champion, but definitely strangely weak in an open wheel series.
- Another weak title-winning year: Richard Burns in WRC, in 2001. 44 points in 14 races gives him an average of 3.14 (not pi, though) points per race, just barely above the value of 4th place and at 31% of the highest possible score of 140. Imagine that happening nowadays.
- Robby Gordon's first NASCAR win came one race after failing to qualify for the Atlanta fall race in 2001. (In the same car, to be clear)
- Jamie McMurray, who didn't make the Chase in 2004, had more top 10 finishes that season than champion Kurt Busch.
- Not necessarily an anomaly, but it was odd that the Daytona 500, Southern 500 and Brickyard 400 were all won by first-time winners in 2011. Not exactly what you'd call standard practice, and those weren't the beginnings of new big name drivers either as none of those have won another race since.
Some of the examples I came up with when I last had nothing else to do:
- Alex Zanardi's 1998 CART season was perhaps one of the most dominant in series history, winning the title by 116 points over 2nd place en route to a failed F1 career. Something was missing though - in that entire year he never once qualified on the pole. Made even odder by the fact he certainly had qualifying prowess the previous two years, but somehow never made it to the front spot over a single lap this time.
- Two years later, Gil de Ferran won the title with 168 points in 20 races - that's an average of 8.4 points per race, just above 6th place. A fairly typical average finish for a NASCAR champion, but definitely strangely weak in an open wheel series.
- Another weak title-winning year: Richard Burns in WRC, in 2001. 44 points in 14 races gives him an average of 3.14 (not pi, though) points per race, just barely above the value of 4th place and at 31% of the highest possible score of 140. Imagine that happening nowadays.
- Robby Gordon's first NASCAR win came one race after failing to qualify for the Atlanta fall race in 2001. (In the same car, to be clear)
- Jamie McMurray, who didn't make the Chase in 2004, had more top 10 finishes that season than champion Kurt Busch.
- Not necessarily an anomaly, but it was odd that the Daytona 500, Southern 500 and Brickyard 400 were all won by first-time winners in 2011. Not exactly what you'd call standard practice, and those weren't the beginnings of new big name drivers either as none of those have won another race since.
Last edited: