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Game Theory at 190mph
cameronm writes "A recent article in Slate discusses the value of NASCAR racing as a tool to study Game Theory. You can view the original study at FirstMonday."
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I am not a big fan of NASCAR, but I would think that the mechanics and those who design the cars have a more difficult job than the driver's themselves....
What's next? Studying Wal-Mart shoppers' habits for the cultural development of the Western world???
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
it is simply a daytime soap played out on a race track.
p.s If you don't get it then you didn't read the article
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
It's no the complexity or simplicity of the track, that is unimportant. The point is the challenge and the danger involved in NASCAR. Another reasons fans like NASCAR is because everyone drives and everyone can try to make their car faster. The final reason is that the drivers are friendly unlike other sports and aren't paid many millions of dollars for the most part.
would be why there don't seem to be many women or
ethnic drivers in NASCAR. That's just my opinion.
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
NASCAR racing, along with 'professional' 'wrestling,' country 'music,' and insipid reality shows like "American Idol," "Joe Millionaire," and "Survivor," are the three greatest contributors to the horrific plummeting of the average American's IQ.
/me looks for a crayon and a mallet to drive it into my brain, so I no longer feel anguish at how such mindless drivel is leading to the downfall of our society.
I am truly a Spalding Gray in a Rick Dees world.
Just what is game theory? I saw the headline and assumed the story was about yet-another-games-programming-course, but a cursory skimming of the article suggests that it's a branch of social science. I'm curious, anyone care to clear this up for me?
once you are in "line" you need to stick your head out once a while otherwise your engines overheat.
I am sure that contributes to a WHOLE other dimension of it - how do you know if the guy's going out for "fresh breath" or passing?
My life in the land of the rising sun.
A while back a couple of brothers managed to get PhDs in physics by typing up gibberish with buzz words. Anyone else think this happened here? I mean, the article says "sometimes competitors should work together for a while" and Slashdot is overcome with astonishment. You could say the same thing about marathons, biking, politics, office culture, zoology, evolution, basically anything with multiple competitors. Nothing new here, move a long.
+1 insiteful!@ ps nascar rulez!!!
This young specimen fits neatly into my previous post regarding the overwhelming presence of rednecks and the unsurprising lack of intelligence among the nascar demographic.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
when I spent an entire semester playing Hex and Go.
KFG
Racing is a weird dance between tech and mental, especially on an amateur scale where you are the mechanic, crew chief, transport driver, racer and the lunch chef.
It is indeed a HUGE mental game, but in my case (motorcycle roadracing) it is mostly played with yourself. The organization I race with (AFM) is stricly road courses, and not a lot of drafting is required but the technical challenges are many and varied during a race weekend.
Give it a shot sometimes before you knock it. Racing requires hugely varied skills and a whole boatload of maturity and perserverance.
-jim
Perfect. There's one one winner, so that's unique. There's 3 that place, so that's scarce. There's a handful that get points in the series, so that's common.
Video games stack up about the same, leaving physics and other sciences out of it for a moment. Feed the ego with wins or temorary need for sense of accomplishements with little tokens, like collecting rings in Sonic or a kick that sends a little blood splashing in some fighter game. Yeah, I lose games quite often, but I still try to limit the availibility of pluses to winners, even acting as a spoiler if that's all I can do (which I did very nicely today, thank you very much :-) Nice to see all the dymanics, which I already knew from other racing sports. (even engaged in a little drafting today on the end of my ride, yeah, buddy you didn't lose me, I'm right behind you going just as fast as you and you're starting to huff and puff and I'm fresh, guess what comes next...) I was considering the whole economic model of a couple games a few days ago, considering why some work and some don't. Games have economies, even single player, so a good economic model, besides just how many win, place or show, helps.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Usually at the Winner's Circle or whenever the driver gets some time to talk to the camera, they thank their pit crew first. If you've ever seen them change tires, or whatever it's incredibly fast. Not to mention all of the other repairs they have to do at lightning speed.
Still, doesn't mean I am ever going to pick one up.
GameTab - Game Reviews Database
I used to absolutely abhor NASCAR. The only thing I'd ever watch were the wrecks. Now I'm the type of guy to leave some sort of sports on the teevee while tooling around online or playing games in MAME. But starting last year during a really bad cold I began to watch NASCAR. At first I was like okay this is at least as exciting as soccer. Then I watched some more and the wrecks were fricken awesome. Okay, one more race. More awesome wrecks. Then again. Next thing I knew I actually began to pay real attention (well in the same way I'd watch a BBall game) and suddenly it struck me. NASCAR is a hell of a lot smarter than I was giving it credit for.
Races play out a lot like a chess game, there is an immense amount of strategy involved. Hell there is a concerted effort going on with everyone at very high rates of reaction times... one fuckup and bam they all go down. NASCAR really gets a bum rap because of the stupid commercials, southern drawls and history. But for techies and people willing to look past it's somewhat boring motif there is a somewhat rewarding experience there.
Then again I also like any kind of car racing. Perhaps one too many hours of Gran Tourismo broked my brain.
--- I do not moderate.
Baseball - a slow, serene game played with a wooden bat, a cloth ball, and cowhide mitts on a broad, grassy field - surged in popularity just when the industrial revolution was taking hold, leaving masses of urban workers and shopkeepers yearning for the pastoral peace and quiet of the fabled agricultural age. They could relive this for a day by attending a baseball game. By extension, no wonder stock-car racing - a fast, furious sport contended on a paved roadway with snarling, smelly machines operated by hand - is surging in popularity at the very time the computerized information revolution is transforming our society from top to bottom. Stock-car racing expresses the industrial age more than does any big sport in America.
I think this is interesting, because perhaps these are reasons why people are having a hard time adjusting to the "new" era.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
I realize you're being sarcastic, but apparently many people don't.
Pretty much all I'm seeing in this thread so far is a bunch of insults of the intelligence of NASCAR fans. (Of course, this is slashdot, and this is the first few posts...)
However, I think one thing that people overlook is the level of creativity the teams have to have to make their car superior to the next team's. This year, all the makes have to fit the same set of templates -- that is, the cars have to be practically the same shape, whether a Chevy, Ford, Pontiac, or Dodge. Meaning no make has a particular aerodynamic advantage over another, and teams can't tweak the shape of their car for more speed. NASCAR has strict rules on engine specifications and suspension setup. There's a lot of engineering work in these cars that, while not necessarily directly applicable to street cars the way, say, World Rally Championship technology is, still helps the automakers develop more efficient, better performing, safer cars. Teamwork matters in NASCAR -- many a race has been won or lost just because of how well the pit crew did their job.
Hex and Go are part of the standard curiculum upon entering the formal study of mathmatics known as Game Theory.
My post may have been unfunny or overrated, but I'm afraid the one thing it was not was offtopic.
Thank you for your indulgence in this matter. Please return to your previous employment with your wife/sister.
KFG
Don't you mean mullet?
You're using her as bait, Master!
A quick primer in ultra basic physics: Assuming all equipment is equal, two or more cars running nose to tail (starting at about 130 MPH+) can move faster than a single car with the same amount of horsepower, due to the drafting effect.
At two tracks on the NASCAR schedule (Daytona and Talladega), restrictor plates are used (I won't get into the religious war as to why the plates are used). The effect is that due to the cars being "underpowered" as (compared to the circuit's grip and traction potential), the cars do not maximize the track, they are able to negotiate the entire course without having to lift or brake. Due to the artificially enhanced draft effect, no car is able to pull away from the pack. Hence there is a continual chess game using this effect to work your way to the front, for gaining points for leading, and to be at the right spot for the last lap. Part of the chess game is teaming up to create temporary alliances to maximize the draft.
While the draft effect is a crucial part at other high speed tracks on the circuit (Michigan, Charlotte, etc), the effect is the most important aspect at Talladega and Daytona.
I am not a big racing fan and have never really understood the allure, but the section Basic Dynamics of Drafting is a fantastic read. It gives great insight into tactics used by these highly skilled drivers.
The original study has implications for erstwhile competing entities that are forced to co-operate to suceed. Comparison is made to the tech sector. RTFA.
christ you fucking moderators suck. This guy has a valid point. It's not like he said NO women or blacks or whatever are in nascar. he said not many. as a black woman wannabe beer guzzling redneck, I applaud this post.
Game theorists should get to work on why we're wasting precious fossil fuels and emitting nasty gasses on this "sport" that could be just as well done on a computer. Yeah mark me "Troll" or whatever, I just flinch every time I see press lip service to this destructive "sport".
Cooperation in competition to win and GT? Check out Tit-for-Tat, as well as a bunch of other things for more examples.
My favorite part was: "It takes two to pass one.""There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
How often haven't we looked at things we know nothing about, thinking that it can't be that hard, or there isn't much to it.
When videocameras became a household item, we all thought that it would be easy to make quality vacation movies only to discover that watching hours of TV and movies does not give you the skills. As they say in France "pouvez vous avoir la grande honte pour traduire ceci", he who thinks he knows everything, knows nothing.
In the case of Nascar there's is also added a lot of "padding/filling" to make the broadcasts more interesting. This is done in many programs so that people who don't know about the "rules/mechanics/physics" about the actual driving, can be entertained too.
Most North American sports fans I know assume cycling is just a test of physical fitness, comparable to competitive marathon or track and field. Not so. Drafting in cycling is crucial; at the speeds the pros race, sitting on another rider's wheel saves about 40% in power compared to riding into the wind. Team strategy and tactics more often determine winners than raw fitness.
It's funny that NASCAR and pro cycling occupy almost opposite public images in the North American gestalt: hirsute, homegrown, working class sport vs. effete, Euro, vaguely yuppie-ish sport. But the sports' underlying structures (strategy, tactics, etc.) are surjective.
The previous post was not offtopic. It included information, information in no other post at that, on the study of game theory, which, as it happens, is the topic.
What it *was* was blatant moderator bait however.
*THIS* post is offtopic.
KFG
I don't know how anyone can watch that. I guess the argument is that there's more passing then in, say, F1 racing.
But come on. Those vehicles are boring technically, I mean we're talking 1970s automotive technology. A riced up Honda civic could probably go faster then these anachronisms.
And as far as pure visceral excitement... come on! They're just driving around in a damn circle!
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Here are some song lyrics, dedicated to all those NASCAR fans out there.
Cut the Mullet - Wesley Willis
Do something about your long, filthy hair
It looks like a rat's nest
Do something about your mullet
Get out the hair clippers, jerk
Cut the mullet
Cut the mullet
Cut the mullet
Cut the mullet
Get the rat's nest off your head
Get that crazy-ass mother off your skull
Take your ass to the barber shop
Tell the barber that you're sick of looking like an asshole
Cut the mullet
Cut the mullet
Cut the mullet
Cut the mullet
The mullet is the reason why people hate you
They are sick of looking at your nappy weed-sack
Nobody wants to look at you with that mullet on your head
Why don't you cut that mullet, you numbskull
Cut the mullet
Cut the mullet
Cut the mullet
Cut the mullet
Rock over London, rock on Chicago
Insure One, it's the insurance superstore
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
...but being ultra nitpicky. The draft effect can definitely be measured at those speeds, but for meaningful use during NASCAR races you only can truly utilize it at the speeds I mentioned. When truckers utilize the effect, they have the luxury of long stretches of road. NASCAR drivers have at the most, 1 mile to make use of it (at tracks other than Dega/Daytona) before having to brake. Daytona and Talladega repesent the extreme use of this effect. At the other tracks, there is more emphasis of driver skill and equipment construction. At short tracks like Bristol and Martinsville (1/2 mile total), the draft effect (however tiny and measurable it is) is never something a driver even subconciously thinks to try to utilize.
So even if there were a lot of woman or ethnic drivers with the goal of being in Winston Cup (and there are a few), the fact is that one of the 43 guys that are racing right now has to retire or die before there's even going to be a spot to fill.
Then, and only then, does racism and sexism come into play.
Lack of creativity is no excuse for not having a
I suspect NASCAR is not an ideal (ie: boundary pushing) example of the sorts of game theory this article talks about.
Most of all: cycling. There's more flexibility for overtaking - a limitation in track racing. Other than that, the nature of the competition is similar - slipstreaming and darfting.
Another comparison I thought of is the board game Diplomacy, because there's more time to think, and betrayal is all but inevitable: in order to win, you will have to screw your allies if you are on the path to success. This is not necesarily the case in nascar where you may be happy to lose now because it's meaningless whether you come fourteenth or fifteenth. In diplomacy, there is a status attached to mere survival. I admit, there is a path to stalemate whereby you honour your agreements. However, it is rare.
However, I found the point of the article - regarding where accidents happen - to be very interesting.
Believe with me, my saplings.
Can someone else confirm or deny this?
I've read about 3 papers from that 'peer reviewed' journal and they just seem like little soapboxes for the authors; I could read through the linked paper, it was reading like an editorial....
I thought it was just the author of the papers I was reading but I am begining to think its' encouraged by the journal..
A quick scan of the paper doesn't really show any data..I see words like 'agents' and 'complexity' but not much data...unless someone can give a convincing arguments otherwise I stand by my assertion that it's just a load of bunk.
The most common complaint from NASCAR drivers:
Just once, can't we turn right?
I suppose they can relate to derek zoolander.
to email me: take my
The real world must be a lot simpler than I have always believed, or perhaps they should be studying a sport like european bicycle road racing, which shares the cooperation/competition thing, but has nine or ten guys per team in scenarios where, because of terrain or the type of race, certain teams/riders can excel and have a real chance to win one day, but not the next, and everyone knows what everyone else's strengths and weaknesses are. Also, things like national loyalty, even between riders on different teams, often plays into things, as well as riders "thanking" other teams for giving them a nice contract for the upcoming season, and blowing off their current team.
It's a heartless sport really, much like life.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
Well, if you're Derek Zoolander I'm sure you'd be quite extatic about making a left turn. Three rights probably doesn't work well in a race.
If you want to see cars which bear some resemblance to production race, it's either a production car category like Porsche Cup, or group N rally (the World Rally cars are very heavily modified).
My favourite racing categories are actually motocross bikes or dirt speedway racing, which in terms of spectator entertainment crap all over the open-wheel categories, NASCAR, Touring Cars, and even rallies (you don't get to see enough of the course in a rally, sadly). The other nice thing about supercross is that you can actually buy the bikes the pros use (well, not quite, but very, very close).
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Take a look at the telemetry aquisition used by some teams, and what they do with it.
FWIW, If you want to prep your son for any form of racing, get him to a karting center at once.
See F1 Boston as an excellent example.
Roger
The BMW engine is much better in the straightaway, however the McLaren is better at the corners, and Ferrari are the best at tight spaces. It really makes it multi-dimensional compared to the Ford, Chevy, and Dodge cars that are the only allowed types on the field. NASCAR emphasises the driver, while F1 (any formula racing for that matter) focuses on the car. The nerd will go for F1 any day, while the Sociologist will watch NASCAR.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
The theory is very simple:
one, two, left, one, two, three, left, one, two, left, one, two, three, left, one...
the cars have to be practically the same shape, whether a Chevy, Ford, Pontiac, or Dodge
is there a set of rules or conventions or sponsorships that conspire against import cars? im surprised there arent any japanese or german models out there. just curious.
As someone studying political science with a strong interest in game theory, complexity theory, and computational modeling, I have only one thing to say: please don't make me watch--much less analyze--NASCAR!
That thing about cooperation sometimes being necessary in competition... isn't that one of John Nash's discoveries? I forgot.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Lighten up, dude.
There's more physics, science and strategy in running a modern stock car than setting up Apache on a Linux machine, bud. Most NASCAR fans are very familliar with the science behind the strategies and methods that make the winners win - hardly the prevue of "rednecks" with an "unsurprising lack of intelligence". They would also grasp the reason for your insipid comments - an appauling lack of good will towards your fellow man.
Geek though you may be, you and I are nothing special in relation to "the big picture". You really shouldn't look down upon people who can do something far better than you can (unless you actually _can_ build, then drive a car for 500 miles averaging over 170MPH). If I were you, I'd get off that high horse you're riding.
Just a bit of friendly advice from someone who's been there.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
The nature of how humans interact with each other can be seen in all instances of contact by default. By studying what we created on the smaller scale we can better understand what exists at the macro-level of human interaction. So many social enviroments are so very similar, with only superficial differences.
Brought to you by the Artificial Idea Factory.
It is kind of frustrating to read articles like this because the action seen in the Daytona 500 is not indicative of NASCAR racing in general. Since the Daytona 500 is by far the biggest race and thus picks up the most casual viewers, there are many people getting to see true NASCAR action, but the very ugly restrictor place bastardization instead.
There are 36 races in the NASCAR season. Four of them, including the Daytona 500, are run with restrictor plates on the carburetors (which limits the horsepower). The effects that these plates have on the cars and the race are many, but the net effect is that they equalize the cars to a ridiculous degree. What this means is that the draft becomes the only away to get an advantage on another car and so you absolutely need a 'buddy' to run with you if you want to make a pass. This is the phenomenon that is explored in the Slate article.
Now, there are some interesting things that go on during a NASCAR restrictor plate race: the cooperation with opponents, the constant need of strategy, the frequent teamwork, etc. And hey, the game theory applications in the referenced articles are pretty neat. It is indeed a high-speed chess game. But as someone else already said here, one thing is it NOT, is racing.
Rest assured that most of the races in the NASCAR season still boil down to a good old fashioned "run the car as fast as you can, the best man wins". For sure, drafting strategy still comes into play in some of the other races on the larger tracks, but it's not the one and only thing that determines every position on the track. In this poster's opinion, it's a shame that the great Daytona 500 is sullied by restrictor plates.
Note: Restrictor plates were mandated by NASCAR as a safety measure, but the way they equalize everybody's speed causes extremely congested groups of cars, and that has led to some really huge crashes. One could argue that Dale Earnhardt's death is partly attributable to the restrictor plate rule. It's a very controversial issue.
204mph civic. That was with two seconds of googling.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
This isn't a troll. I don't see 50 comments after this. I don't even see how you could think this is a troll. Damn sensitive nascar rednecks.
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
Courtesy of The *nix Top 5
Please write to John Mayer and Nora Jones and advise them to lay off the ciggies for a bit.
I don't see how you could do worse than use Walmart as a study basis for sociality theories. Just like Sears made some pretty profound implications for social change with their mail order business, the fact that Walmart has been basically transforming many rural areas they're part of by a flood of mass produced mid-quality goods has got to have some implications as well. Before Walmart many rural areas had to depend on untrustowrthy local distributors and access to urban centers, now they too can get cheaply made crap from around the world exactly like everyone else. In many ways they're like homogenized corporate flea markets.
I'm not saying that Walmart is good or bad. The way they use controls over their distribution and those implications of control are pretty nasty, but on the other hand I can't see how many places in rural America would be better off if there hadn't been a Walmart. It simply gives rural America better access to consumer goods than main street type small businesses could possibly afford to, covering goods that might not otherwise make it into smaller markets.
To ensure you always have a beer at hand, hang a six-pack of cans from your belt using the plastic retaining loops - Porta-Beer(tm)!
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
It's no the complexity or simplicity of the track, that is unimportant.
Yes, those ovals can certainly be tricky, what with all the turning left and going straight...
*boggle*
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
I saw something better a while ago, and haven't been able to find it since... the Beer Bandolier. You can walk around with beers strapped crosswise over your chest and back. Perfect for any BYOB event. We wanted them for the dragstrip, since you do a lot of walking back and forth from the pits to the stands.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
John Nash - as well as John Von Neuman and abunch of others. The came up with Game theory. As see prisoner dilemma problem.
If you always know the outcome of the race, what's the point of watching it?
No Africans Shall Compete At our Races?
The article makes a critical mistake in its assumptions. The analysis is based on the premise that all of the cars behave the same and that the drivers, making and breaking alliances, control the fate.
The simple fact is that some cars are faster and some are slower from a combination of engine power, aerodynics, and suspension/handling. The slower cars can hang onto the draft, but even if they make the right alliances, they can not work their way to the front. Whereas other cars, and in this year's Daytona 500 particularly the cars of Dale Earnhardt Inc., have an advantage and can work their way to the front more or less at will.
I don't deny that choosing who to align yourself with and deciding when to leave them high and dry is an important part of the game, but the article makes it seem as if its the only part when in reality it's only a very small part. The performance of the car controls who gets to write the rules in the drafting pack.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Frisbees. Rambo III. Soul Train. The Twist. Landscape Seating. Horse Shoes. Phrenology. Axe Throwing. Radio Ventriloquism. Cowboys 'n Indians. Baseball. Hula Hoops.
BTW, was the original poster trying to be funny when he claimed that NASCAR racing, professional wrestling, country music, and reality shows were the three greatest contributors to the plummeting American IQ? He should add the level of mathematics in public schools to that list, and bring it up to a round seven.
The ______ Agenda
Thats very strange... I know lots of hardcore techs who are into racing themselves, but don't know anyone into racing themselves who think NASCAR is anything more than motorsports version of WWF/WWE.
;-)
I'm a hardcore tech, I spend most of the time I'm not geeking out racing, and I've worked tech for racing teams... and my extent of interest in NASCAR is the thought coming into turn six at Watkins Glen that the "professional" NASCAR drivers are so damn scared of making turns both directions that they skip the boot entirely...
Sounds like you know that, what the heck are you a NASCAR fan for?
Hmm, let's see:
:) :)
Fat, beer drinking, rabid fans.
Might be a NASCAR race...
Might be a Linux convention.
Seriously, being a devoted NASCAR fan AND a Systems Engineer, I obviously fall into a small demographic. But as several posters have noted earlier, NASCAR is SO much more than hicks in fast cars doing silly beer commercials. The crew chiefs, mechanics and fabricators that work on these cars are "hackers" in the true sense of the word, much more than most of us will ever be. Team work, dedication, commitment, attention to detail, creativity... I image any of these terms will be familiar to coding teams or engineering teams no matter whether you live in the southeastern US, or southeastern India. F1 and Rally Racing are technically challenging and exciting to watch, but if nothing else, NASCAR racing is just plain fun. Envite some friends over, fire up the grill, open up a cold one, put on that Harvick t-shirt and spend 4 hours watching a Bristol or Richmond night race. If nothing else, maybe it will get your mind off coding for a few hours and help improve your social skills all at the same time
Then again, maybe I'm just weird. I'm from Kentucky and I'm a "rabid" NHL fan, also
who enjoys a good stock car race (or, more accurately, I like watching darned near anything race...) I'd like to add in a few notes:
1) Stock car racing isn't always like this; this is the norm at Daytona or Talladega, but smaller tracks have different dynamics. Also, simply saying this is "NASCAR" is also misleading; the "NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series" is just as much NASCAR as the "NASCAR Winston Cup Series" they're talking about here, and the trucks run differently, even at Daytona. (The trucks have unrestricted motors, and instead rely on the fact that they have to punch a bigger hole in the air to keep them at "safe" speeds. This leaves sufficient power to bring back one-on-one moves like a slingshot)
2) NASCAR drivers aren't all "he". Shawna Robinson, Deborah Renshaw, and Tina Gordon would probably argue that point.
3) The comment that racers get more aggressive when they're worried about losing more so than winning is questionable-- it seems more to me that the agressiveness level is a function of how many laps are left, and not position on the track. The reason backmarkers tend to wreck more often is their car isn't handling as well, which is why they're back there in the first place...
On the other hand, the game theory aspect is pretty spot-on, and it gets even better than what the article noted: Many race teams field more than one car. So there are some cars out there that a driver can trust more so than the others, since they're teammates. Finishing second to your teammate isn't nearly as painful as finishing second to somebody else-- pays the same, but if you didn't win, it's much better to have not won by helping your teammate do so. The game mechanics are notably more complex than the article notes, and may even be as complex as the auto mechanics...
One reason that I prefer stock cars over their many open-wheeled cousins is that you get the door-bangin'. They can bounce off each other, plant a couple donuts, and still be okay. Which makes for more entertainment, IMO. Also, with NASCAR rules the way they are, the makes have to be manufactured in the US. Which lends the sport a bit of patriotic 100% American-ness. Ok, so that could be good or bad, depending on how you look at it.
MGL to /., and the author of the article. I -did- think Nascar was a joke sport previously; that piece opened my eyes to aspects of the sport I hadn't yet considered.
Between this article and the Travel Channel special on the Concorde last night, I'm wishing I'd studied aerodynamics in school instead of...whatever it is I did between the ages of 18-22.
...I was reading about this exact same subject, as it related to bicycle racing at least 5 years ago, if not more. And it's for the same reasons -- two competitors will need to take turns drafting off one another to get to the finish line before the peleton.
To make matters more complex, those two racers have to have enough guile to draft longer than they pull...so that they have more energy for the sprint against each other for the win.
Still...that racing where drafting is involved (motorsports, cycling, whatever) is extremely complex from a game theory perspective is nothing new...
blog |
Before you go getting all bent out of shape over restrictor plates and safety, consider the following:
1) Daytona and Talledega are LONG
2) Daytona and Talledega are HIGHLY BANKED
That combination of the length of the track and especially the high banking (which provides gobs of extra cornering force) means that the cars can sustain astronomical top speeds without needing major revolutions in tire technology or wing-and-undertray levels of downforce. It's the banking that lets 'em run flat out.
NASCAR was running over 200 MPH at Daytona in the 60's, back when the cars really were production based and had stones for tires. With modern (for NASCAR) tires and suspensions, that banking could probably support speeds in excess of 260 MPH before the cars got cornering-force limited and had to slow down on corner entry.
Now with the frontal area that they have, no NASCAR car is going to be turning 260 with even unrestricted engines. The power consumed by aero drag is a function of the square of the speed, so it takes more power for the same delta v the faster you go. There's a limit to how much power you can squeeze out of even an unrestricted motor, so the real top speed would probably be somewhere in the 235 area.
But note that the guy who makes 5 HP more than his neighbor is only going to make a small fraction of a MPH more in terminal velocity.
So guess what pulling the restrictor plates off did? You get the EXACT SAME scenario as you had with the plates on, except now the speeds are 30-50 MPH faster. And kinetic energy (that must be dissipated in a crash) is a function of the square of velocity squared as well....
As bad as a Big Wreck at a buck ninety is, that pales in comparision to the same wreck at 230. And these aren't 1500lb Champ cars, these are 3600lb locomotives.
The problem with restrictor plates isn't that they cause the tight grouping of cars and the inability to pass unassisted - that's the fault of the banking. The big issue with the restrictor plate is that it takes a tremendous amount of engineering to try and coax extra air through that plate, and to get the engine to run in the odd environment the plate creates in the intake manifold. R&D costs for a 'plate engine run easily 10 times higher than a short track motor.
What NASCAR should do is make the actual engine displacement for the superspeedways smaller. Make 'em run a 3 litre V6. That'd bring costs way down while still preserving the safety.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
"sea of Confederate flags"
I have been to many NASCAR races (both up North and down South) and I have never seen anyone waving a Confederate flag. I *think* I may have seen a sticker of a Confederate flag on a window in TN at a NASCAR event.
NASCAR fans are NOT all southern rednecks. It is a mainstream sport with fans of all races, sexes, and monetary backgrounds.
Holy s-, it's Jesus!
It's too bad the author didn't explore this further. One of the reasons the administration is having such a hard time getting a coaltion together for a war in Iraq is because they "defected" from the "drafting line" on so many other issues: the Kyoto treaty, steel tarrifs, farming subsidies, the World Court.
The Bush administration has pursued a course of multilateralism at every turn. Now they are having trouble finding partners. Is it any wonder?
Richard Petty ran for state office after his racing career. He was slightly to the right of Ghengis Khan. He lost.
So while racing is an interesting cooperative game, the cooperation says quite a bit about how women and men of color fail to thrive in a world of constant favours, like say technical or corporate worlds.
In fact, just as to some extent baseball is a game of the individual` and thus was popular as the company and foctory man came into being; NASCAR is a sport of industry and exclusion: women and blacks need not apply. Good old fashioned values.
I mean, could anybody be that fukken clueless?
GAME THEORY
Theory of rational behavior for interactive decision problems. In a game, several agents strive to maximize their (expected) utility index by chosing particular courses of action, and each agent's final utility payoffs depend on the profile of courses of action chosen by all agents. The interactive situation, specified by the set of participants, the possible courses of action of each agent, and the set of all possible utility payoffs, is called a game; the agents 'playing' a game are called the players.?
T&K.
Political language
We largely agree about 'professional wrestling' and insipid reality shows, which are merely semi-scripted morality plays, not actual sports.
However, auto racing, even NASCAR, is ENORMOUSLY complex, making SW engineering look trivial. Don't take my word for it, take that of Joe Gibbs, a NASCAR team owner and former NFL head coach. He took only three years to win a Super Bowl championship with the Washington Redskins, but over nine in his second career as a team owner to win a Winston Cup championship. Or ask Dodge, which fielded several factory teams two years ago and doesn't yet have a championship.
Working within a strict set of rules designed to keep things as fair as practical, teams must design a vehicle that is safe (can take a hit and come back another day), reliable (gets to the finish line despitet enormous stresses), fast (can put torque and HP to the wheels), and quick (is balanced and turns and brakes well). These involve thousands of devilishly complex tradeoffs; more downforce creates more drag, bigger brakes work better but add unsprung weight, stickier tires wear out quicker, and so forth. The top teams all have fully traind engineers on staff (not like CART teams which may have 20+ engineers, of F1, with 100+, but this is no 'dumb' exercise).
Then, they need to come to each track, run through as many tests as they can in a few hours to get the thing to work on the current track layout, surface, and weather conditions. The data can come off these cars at megabytes per minute, and must be analyzed in hours. Then, the data feed is removed during the race (rules to prevent feedback loops). To see a hint of this complexity, set your Tivo or Replay TV to find the the Speed Channel show called Nascar Tech -- it only scratches the surface.
The driver needs to maintain concentration in an environment that ranges between 120F and 190F, dressed in a three-layer fireproof suit and helmet, with over 100db noise, pulling several Gs of force, just inches from the other competitors, going up to going 190+mph. Aside from all the split-second racing and tactical judgements, he needs to track many operational parameters so he can tell the crew what corrections to make on the next stop. How many tires to change, change tire pressure, add or remove wing or camber, etc...
The fact is: anyone who gets even casually involved with this sport will become involved in an educational process that cannot be completed in one lifetime. Your lumping this in with scripted shows merely displays your lack of knowledge on this topic.
I used to have some similarly snobby attitudes, looking down on this populist form of the sport, but as soon as I looked more closely, I adjusted my attitude. I've also been frequently surprised with the knowledge of some of the 'bubbas' I've encountered. You might want to take a closer look also.
Love the sport !
I'm curious how you think the game theory people would accomodate rain (delay or cancelled) and the critical pit strategies (2 or 4 tires, during cautions, etc).
Everyone I know who has taken the time to actually LEARN what the sport is about has become hooked ! It's deceptively simply as a casual observer but very much more complex once you know the ropes. Hell, I have buddies that even track what pit crews are working with whom and what deals are in the works (the same guys who listen in on the radio comms at the actual races)
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
I'm both a software designer by profession and a licensed auto racer (I race sportscars, but NASCAR has many similarities, and even runs on road courses several times per year). We largely agree about 'professional wrestling' and insipid reality shows, which are merely semi-scripted morality plays, not actual sports.
However, auto racing, even NASCAR, is ENORMOUSLY complex, making SW engineering look trivial. Don't take my word for it, take that of Joe Gibbs, a NASCAR team owner and former NFL head coach. He took only three years to win a Super Bowl championship with the Washington Redskins, but over nine in his second career as a team owner to win a Winston Cup championship. Or ask Dodge, which fielded several factory teams two years ago and doesn't yet have a championship.
Working within a strict set of rules designed to keep things as fair as practical, teams must design a vehicle that is safe (can take a hit and come back another day), reliable (gets to the finish line despitet enormous stresses), fast (can put torque and HP to the wheels), and quick (is balanced and turns and brakes well). These involve thousands of devilishly complex tradeoffs; more downforce creates more drag, bigger brakes work better but add unsprung weight, stickier tires wear out quicker, and so forth. The top teams all have fully traind engineers on staff (not like CART teams which may have 20+ engineers, of F1, with 100+, but this is no 'dumb' exercise).
Then, they need to come to each track, run through as many tests as they can in a few hours to get the thing to work on the current track layout, surface, and weather conditions. The data can come off these cars at megabytes per minute, and must be analyzed in hours. Then, the data feed is removed during the race (rules to prevent feedback loops). To see a hint of this complexity, set your Tivo or Replay TV to find the the Speed Channel show called Nascar Tech -- it only scratches the surface.
The driver needs to maintain concentration in an environment that ranges between 120F and 190F, dressed in a three-layer fireproof suit and helmet, with over 100db noise, pulling several Gs of force, just inches from the other competitors, going up to going 190+mph. Aside from all the split-second racing and tactical judgements, he needs to track many operational parameters so he can tell the crew what corrections to make on the next stop. How many tires to change, change tire pressure, add or remove wing or camber, etc...
The fact is: anyone who gets even casually involved with this sport will become involved in an educational process that cannot be completed in one lifetime. Your lumping this in with scripted shows merely displays your lack of knowledge on this topic.
I used to have some similarly snobby attitudes, looking down on this populist form of the sport, but as soon as I looked more closely, I adjusted my attitude. I've also been frequently surprised with the knowledge of some of the 'bubbas' I've encountered. You might want to take a closer look also.
"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
First of all, that was meant to be humor. Second of all, I do race my modified '97 porsche 911 in SCCA and PCA club events on a regular basis. I'll send you web links to my race results if you'd like. And yes, I have seen 170 mph in my car, albeit not for 500 miles (more like
I'm probably biased against nascar simply because I don't like rednecks, country music, pickup-trucks, etc. FYI My girlfriend comes from a redneck family and I don't like a single one of those ignorant bastards.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
I have never one car pass another in a F1 race. Is it illegal or impossible to pass? Whoever takes the lead in Lap 1 generally wins unless their is a mechanical problem BORING!
Americans thinks their sports are the greatest...
NASCAR is a bunch of underpowered, low-technology and insecure cars in boring, repetitive tracks (other than left turns, anyone), driven by old overweigth drivers.
I know all generalizations are unfair, but in this case i dont think so...
Anyone who's seen Robert Mitchum in "Thunder Road" can attest to the popularity (especially in the American South) of modifying stock engines for greater performance (in this case, evading law enforcement while delivering bootleg liquor ("moonshine".)
Which may indicate why NASCAR was (pre-TV coverage and mainstream marketing) favored mostly in the South, while up North (Indiana, Ohio) you have CART and IRL (Sprint cars, Midgets, and the like.) A Sprint car (as the name implies) can do some amazing speed on a short track, but they run the (relatively small) engines way too hot to do well in a long, sustained race a la NASCAR.
At the late, lamented Louisville Motor Speedway, I once watched a combined evening of NASCAR-type stock car and Sprint-car type events. (This track hadn't had Sprints before.) Imagine the surprise of the (mostly) stock-car fans when the Sprint cars broke the all-time track speed record *32 times* during their qualifying laps!
No one will read this post (seeing as how it is so late in the game on /. - at the bottom of the page, with almost 400 other posts ahead of it), but I'd like to add my opinion to the mix all the same.
I just spent about an hour reading the paper that Slate reported on here. Likewise, I just spent fifteen minutes reading the +5 posts here. Almost nobody who got moderated up has anything worthwhile to say about the actual paper or topic. Posts are either "Nascar sux0rz" or "a primer in game thoery" (from a mouth breathing k5-er no doubt).
David Ronfeldt (the paper's author) appears to be a well read, and well researched writer on the topic of game theory. He also appears to be a knowledgeable fan of NASCAR racing. I just wish that he had put his modified prisoner's dilemma diagram at the front of his paper! This "main point" was a long time coming in the paper. Having read my fair share of Game Theory papers, I can vouch for the value that readers place on brevity. Likewise, it would have been helpful if the "draft-line" metaphor had been more thoroughly threshed out mathematically.
Looking at his diagram, it seems as though Ronfeldt may have found a metaphor sufficient for explaining the outcomes and impulses of actors in this modified Prisoner's Dilemma. I don't feel that there is much more value than that in this paper.
Just letting you know it's always worth posting, even late in the game (except maybe "me too!" or goatse.cx links ;-).
Freedom: "I won't!"
The drag /force/ varies as v^2. The power required to overcome this force is proportional to v^3, because power=F*v
This, of course, reinforces your argument.
That's a good idea on the engines.
He was speaking about speeds 100-150 miles per hour per his previous post. I'm wondering if he's European, I don't really see those kind of speeds in my area, especially from truckers. I mostly get trucks going 55-65 miles per hour. Usually right next to each other on a two lane highway (bastards). Of course, it doesn't help that I drive a car the same model that was used for police cars. That might explain why I keep getting stuck behind everyone.
Next they can study my dog's wagging tail when he sticks his head out my cars window. What actually makes his tail wag? Why doesn't similar stimuli make my cat's tail wag? What type of game can they make from that info? Any game! My point is, people will study everything in existence to make more realistic games. There isn't anything that special about NASCAR as compared to anything else. I'm not saying they shouldn't study NASCAR, I'm just saying this isn't that big a deal. Now, again, why is my dog's tail wagging? ;-)
Very popular slashdot journal for adul