What The Metrics Had To Say About The Southern 500
The world of sports data is constantly changing, with more information available to teams, athletes, and even the common fan that can be used to predict performance trends. NASCAR is no different, and the author of this post has built a number of analytical metrics to help give race fans a more advanced view of the action on the track—because, as any driver can attest to, auto racing isn't always a fair sport.
The following numbers – explained in full detail here – are designed to measure driver performance in various aspects of each race, many of which come from NASCAR’s Loop Data. They are ranked by True Driver Rating (TDR), a variation on NASCAR’s Driver Rating, which incorporates factors such as speed, track position, passing, luck, and equipment strength in order to best estimate how well each driver performed during an event.
The metrics from Sunday night's Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway are as shown below:
Chase Briscoe's clutch win to lock himself into the playoffs at the last possible opportunity was no fluke. He qualified third and had an Average Running Position of 3.2, then passed Kyle Larson and held off Kyle Busch -- two of the greatest drivers of all time -- for the win. That gives Briscoe a TDR score of 212.21, trailing only Larson, who was dominant in leading 263 of 367 laps before fading to fourth.
Briscoe may have been closer to Larson's score of 293.18 if not for the fact that -- despite Stewart-Haas Racing's overall struggles in 2024 -- it appears that their cars were the class of the field on Sunday. Briscoe's teammate Josh Berry additionally had an exceptionally strong race, finishing sixth in TDR, while Noah Gragson and Ryan Preece recorded high passing marks, with Gragson leading the field in True Pass Differential.
SHR's Equipment Rating came out to 7.2, two positions better than the 9.2 score achieved by Larson's Hendrick Motorsports team after two of his teammates, Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman, struggled mightily. Behind the two of them, are Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell. Each ran near the front all race and finished seventh and third, respectively, while William Byron rounds out the top five.
Byron and Berry, just behind him in sixth, did not finish well thanks to a late accident, but still deserve recognition for their performances. On the flip side, there is Busch in seventh, who had his shot to run down Briscoe in the final laps and finished runner-up. Busch's result was largely due to a savvy strategy call to take fresh tires during the final caution, but he is still recognized in the metrics for overachieving relative to his equipment's capabilities.
Darlington's Fairness Rating of .537 seems to continue the disappointing trend of random results this season. In a race that tends to naturally have a lot of attrition though, it could have been much worse. Aside from the wreck that took out Byron, Berry, and others, most drivers who ran near the front got the results they deserved while those who finished better than they ran worked their way up on their own merits.