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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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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.
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.
While my interest in motorsports lies more with rally and road course racing, I believe you're misled if you believe that NASCAR drivers aren't very well compensated. Albeit, earnings are based more upon performance than most american sports, but they are the best paid drivers of any motorsport in the US. Cart and IRL are the only other American racing divisions with anywhere near the financial fortitude of NASCAR, but with nowhere near the popularity. (or number of events, with # of events == greater opportunity to earn more winnings). Internationally, I'd venture a guess that only F1 and maybe WRC drivers make more.
+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.
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
While I agree with you, generally, keep in mind soaps have been and continue to be popular. It's certainly a key part of Pro-Wrestling, which has outlasted my predictions. I've always figured the key attraction of NASCAR was 2+ hours to get roaring drunk, a few exciting crashes, then scream your fool head off during the last lap. Seems a perfect way to spend an afternoon, when you think about it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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
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.
Different work, different risks, different rewards.
The crew and the mechanics have amazing skillsets.
The drivers are athletes. It's hot in those cars, especially wearing an asbestos suit. The suspension is built for handling, not for comfort, so it's a bone-jarring teeth-loosening experience.
The 1969 Dodge Daytona Superbird NASCAR version went in excess of 220 MPH on the bonneville salt flats. The most powerful street version was said to be capable of 180 MPH. That is one SERIOUSLY riced up Honda. Besides, how big of a geek do you have to be to think that technology plays a hand in everything? Even if you ignore the modern suspension that these cars have, racing is against a man and his machine vs another man and his machine. Racing would be racing if they were in steam powered buggies or the latest computer controlled coil-on-plug, solenoid valve super concept cars.
"I've always figured the key attraction of NASCAR was 2+ hours to get roaring drunk, a few exciting crashes, then scream your fool head off during the last lap."
In my experience...
Fans at stock car races tend to behave better than fans at baseball, football, hockey and soccer games. Fights and arrests are very rare. It's a good place to bring the kids.
Many tracks allow you to bring your own cooler of beer into the stands. Cookouts in the parking areas are the norm. You'll never meet friendlier people.
Sure, crashes can be exciting, but real race fans hate to see drivers getting hurt. They would rather see clean wheel-to-wheel racing.
Winston Cup is actually far from the best racing Nascar has to offer. Watch the Modifieds at Loudon if you ever get the chance and you'll see what I mean.
Well, why aren't there more White basketball players? Or, early in the 20th century you might have asked "why are so many basketball players Jewish?". That's right. Jewish.
It's because basketball started in Springfield, MA and took hold first in Northeastern cities that were populated by Jewish immigrants at the time. When that demographic became successful, the inner city became more Black, but the basketball infrastructure (hoops, gyms, cold winters, confined spaces) remained. The Blacks took to it.
Same deal with NASCAR, except that it sprang out of moonshiners outrunning the revenuers. Moonshiners were mostly white, so NASCAR drivers were mostly white. Originally, racism certainly played a part in it too, but probably not as much as we might imagine.
Asking this question is a bit like asking why there are so many Asian guys who like to do martial arts, while so few of them are to be found at quilting bees. It's just part of the culture.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
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
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!
John Nash - as well as John Von Neuman and abunch of others. The came up with Game theory. As see prisoner dilemma problem.
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
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.
You and the parent poster obviously know nothing about NASCAR.
NASCAR tracks vary in size (.5 mile to 2.5 mile), shape (oval, road courses, D), surfaces ( different asphalt compounds) and degree of banking (36 at Daytona, approx 0 at Martinsville).
Watching the engineering changes for each track is quite cool.
Holy s-, it's Jesus!
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
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.