Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

It II AM a I FALL CHAMPIONSHIPS C Motocross Series C Three Week Sunday, September 21 Shadow Glen Course $500 Purse Ex. payback : WH - Y S E AMERICAN CHAMPION (but you need an IB Marland Whaley, still in his teens, passed another milestone in a sparkling trials career by topping Yamaha rival Don Sweet and Honda team mate ' Mark Eggar in the 1975 North American Trials Championship. What may dull the sparkle is the cloud of smoke raised by the scoring system used this year. 1st $80, 2nd $50, 3rd $25, 4th $15 100% payback to 100ce Experts Super Brass to Sportsmen Entry $15 Expert $6 Sportsmen First, the top 10 riders, as released by the AMA: 1. Marland Whaley (Han) 2. Don Sweet (Yam ) 3. Mark Eg9ar (Han) 4. Lane Leavitt (Bul ) non -members add $2 Two motos - Experts Three motos - Sportsmen ~c Sunday, September 28 Super Trophies 100% payback to Expert s Shadow Glen Course Two motos - e xperts Three motos - Sportsmen plus Old-Timers 5. Joe Gugl ielmelli (Han) Steve Darrow (Yam) Bob Hopkins (Yam ) Mike Griffitts (Man) Bruce Ryhti (Suz ) Bemie Schreiber (Bul) 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 714-689-6114 Sunday, October 5 50% Super Trophies .AME Motocross - every 2nd & 4th Sunday (Oct ., Nov .. Dec.) AME Motocross - every Friday night 8 PM Go-Karts - 1st & 3r d Friday nights 8 PM Class C bikes (Short Track) - 2nd & 4th Fr iday nights NM A Mini Motocross - every Friday night 8 PM also - 1st & 3rd Sundays 8 AM Indian Dunes info: 805 -259-8000 Now you're wondering : how did North American Trials Council (or the AMA ) figure those crazy poin ts? The method itself, as relayed by AMA 's calculator-eavortin' office staff, goes as follows: After the results are in for a given trial, subtra ct the winner's score from that of the last place finisher, divide the result by the number of fin ishers minus o ne. L·W (F-1) This is the average pointspread per rider. Adding it to the last place man's score gives you th at of a theoretical extra back-marker. This is needed to make other cal culations work out. Subtract the winner's score from this "shadow" rider's score and divide the result into 1,000 1,000 (S-W) Carry this ou t to six places. You 'll be using this UK " figure repeatedly, so the super accuracy is important. To figure any rider's championship points, subtract his score from the "shadow" rider's score and multiply by U K" (S-R i ) ~ '75 Bultacos ~ 360 Frontera 250 Pursang $1158 $1089 These prices will never be sun again So call us today and mak e a deal But Hurry - St ock is limited BUDDHA enterpnses th~ We'5t'S most QK,gresnve dealer Large pa rt. stock 1-7 W" kd ay $, ,-Ii Solurcl.ay , 10 ·5 SUnd ay 10960 22 & Hole A .... RlveulCltl, 714-689-3166 CA 9 250y~ _ ~ 4931 .688 4920.996 4804.288 4688.433 4684.576 4504.924 4504.481 4432.431 4428.182 4404.363 1975 BVLTACO OWNERS Want better gas mileage. cleaner carbureti on at high altitude? This will do it l Large Amal floet for all square body Amal Carbs. For free Bultaco catalog send sot postage. BETOR AIR FORK KIT for a super smooth ride. No coil binding springs to sack out. Price. start at $1 0 .95. Write or Call. + S1BYe Scott". Machine Wort<. PO Box 871 . Arleta. CA 91 331 . ) 213-896-6209 X K = PI The way the formula works out, the winner should always get 1,000 points by definition. Evcryone else's score, then, is (think on this) a measure of how well he did, taken as a percentage of the total pointspread for the event. With a system like this, winning alone is not abso lute. In ' s h o r t , your championship ta lly is affected not only by y our own performance, but to a greater or lesse r degree by everyone else's performance, as well. Want to see this wor k in practi ce ? Table I sho ws three hy p o th e tical trials resul ts, "Hypo I" has 10 finishers, an d these guys have had the gall to fm ish elClcdy o ne mark apart fr om'each oth'c:t.· • So the second place man's fmish is worth 900 points, third garnered 800, etc. What's trick is that it would make no difference if it was an easy or hard . trial . As long as these 10 guy s finished equally-spaced from each other, the points will be the same. That's true if the winner finishes with 10 marks, or 10 0 , or whatever, If (say) the botto m five DN F o r are disqualified, look what h ap pens to the second place man's sco re . He 's still second, one mark off the win ning ride, but it's only worth 800 championship points to the winner's 1000. Suppose , instead, as in "Hypo II," they all finish as before, except for the last place man, who blows it totally and comes in with 100 marks. By doing so, he has now made the second place man 's finish worth 990 points. Crazy , no? What happens when you crank in real-life numbers, with time penalties added an ' all? " Hy po Ill" is in reality the top 10 finishers in the Colorado Round, tre ated as if they were the whole trial. Hey, what 's this? Marland's sco re is supposed to be 1000. How come it 's 999.99998? This is because , in any formula that requires both division and multipli cation, you introduce inaccuracies when you round off - even to six decimal places. 15 all this necessary? Look at the real-life results: Steve Darrow beating Bob Hopkins out of sixth place, 5404.924 to 4504.48l. That's one-h undredth of one perc en t difference, and thank goodness th is wasn't first and second instead. As it was, for aw hile AMA had two people doing independent calculations and coming up with two different answers. Sp oo ky, the man said. Yeah , spooky it was , bu t it wor ke d out. In te llectual ly it's a neat co ncep t, the NATC poin ts system. If trials we re a ball sport, the NATC formula would be right up there with earned run averages and such like as a too l fo r evaluating a group of athletes. But the Wo rld Series isn't decided on a computer. It's win o r .lo se. Maybe th at should also go for th e • N"otth' ~eric:.n ' T ria\$ O1lU'llptdlll;hip.:

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