Changes for 2019 CFR Organized Play

2018 OP Champ Getting His Trophy

But before we get to the small change for the 3rd season of Organized Play, a quick note wrapping up the 2nd season.

I have the good fortune to live not far from the 2018 Organized Play Champion Michael Polsen and saw him at the Congress of Gamers Fall session.

Before the CFR race, I presented him with the trophy.  Michael is a great guy, huge supporter of CFR, and I couldn't be happier that he won last season.

I think he was pleased with the award and I thought I heard him say he could retire happy now.  Of course, he then proceeded to win the CFR race so I doubt he really is retiring.

2019 Change

The only change I am making for the 2019 Organized Play season is that I will now count a driver's top 5 races towards their ranking points.  For the first two seasons I counted only the top 4 races.

Quick reminder of how OP scoring works
Each driver gets a score for each race based on their finish and how much better or worse than average the field was.  Fields are rated based on the (now) 5 best (unadjusted) finishes for each driver in the field.  Similarly, each drivers gets points for each season, series, or tournament they enter based on their finish in the tournament and the quality and quantity of the competition and the number of races involved.  The top 5 race results and top 2 tournament results are added to together to get your score.

Why?
Over the last two years, to contend for the OP Championship you likely needed to score points in two events and race in four races.  Really, you needed to do well in two events and four race -- probably really well -- but you get the idea.

I set those numbers based on the idea that I wanted a decent number of people to be able to contend for the title, not just people who could do 10+ races a year.  But with more people participating and twice as many racing opportunities occurring I looked over the numbers a little to see if 4 races and 2 tournaments still seemed right.

Below is a table showing how many people participated in at least a certain number of races and tournaments over the last two seasons.

In 2017, 37 different drivers participated in at least 2 tournaments compared to 44 last season.  Not a huge increase, and only 9 drivers participated in 3 or more tournaments.

In 2017, 57 different drivers participated in at least 4 races compared to 73 last season.  A bigger jump.  More importantly, I think 62 drivers participated in at least 5 races last season -- still more than the 57 who participated in 4 or more races in 2017.

What This Means
This will likely emphasize race results over tournament results a bit more than the past.  Although both will likely remain important.

All in all, I do not think it will change who is ranked well.

What About The Future?
In theory, I would like to take into account as many races as possible in order to accurately calculate that year's best driver.  But I also do not want to award that trophy to someone just because they showed up at a lot of races.  So while I could see these numbers rise again I will try to be careful not to over do it.

I also expect that the number of races and overall participation will plateau at some point.