2020 NASCAR PICK 'EM LEAGUE
Welcome to the 6th Season of the NPEL!!
League Rules:
Part 1 - Picks
Part 2 - Scoring
Part 3 - Chase Bonus
Part 4 - High Stakes Option
Part 5 - Payouts
Part 6 - Summary
PART 1 PICKS:
A team may and often will consist of just one person. I use "team" just to make it easier.
Each team will pick a driver for each weekly Nascar Monster Cup race. Teams will be allowed to pick each driver a maximum of
2 times over the course of the season.
* Picks will be due by 12 Noon for day races and by 5 p.m. for night races. The only exception to this will be races where Cup cars are qualifying and racing the same day. The due time will be clearly noted on the league website for these exceptions.
* Once all picks are in for each week, they will be posted to the league website so teams can see who others have picked and can root against them. I will make every effort to post all picks but if I'm very busy during the day of the race I will make it known that picks wont be posted, and make sure my pick is made public pre-race. Even if this is the case all picks will still need to be submitted to me by the due deadline.
* NPEL's championship series will consist of all 36 races. The Chase Bonus (described in detail below) will consist of the final 10 races.
* The NPEL will also be picking for the All Star race at Charlotte and the Nascar Monster Cup Champion. These will be free picks and wont count against your season 2-picks per driver. These picks will be kept on their own page of the league website once all have been submitted.
* Teams can submit picks to me through any of the following ways:
*Text Message
*Facebook Messenger
*Call (If I don't answer, just leave a voicemail. Ill get it)
*Tell me in person. Just make sure I jot it down or make a note of it on my phone. My memory is terrible.
If a team forgets to submit a pick for a race, they will be given the option of using only their most recent driver picked that hasn't been used twice. If every previous driver selected has been selected twice the team will have to take maximum (40) points for that week.
It is the responsibility of the team to make sure they don't submit a driver more than twice for the season. I'll gladly answer inquiries about who teams have used, but if a team submits a driver for a 3rd time during the season and I don't catch it until after the race, the team will have to take max (43) points. The Driver Selection Page updated weekly, will also have a list of unavailable drivers for each team as a reference. Weekly results, with selected drivers, are also listed on the website. There will be no option to use a previous submission if a team selects a driver for a third time and fails to change it by the entry deadline. The team will have to take the maximum 40 points.
I will also send out a reminder text message to all teams the morning of every race. This will consist of times the picks are due and the top 10 in qualifying for the upcoming race. Apologies if I send the reminder text to a team that has already made their pick. I try to avoid that.
* Weekly picks will be submitted and kept private until after the entry deadline. They will then be posted to the leage website once all picks are in. If I'm busy and unable to post everybodys pick, I will at least make my pick known.
* Teams pick the DRIVERS each week, not the car number. If a Nascar team is using a substitute driver, that driver can be picked twice as well as the driver they are subbing for if they return. Unavailable drivers will be listed by car number on the Driver Selection Page only for convenience, rather than listing out full names.
* If a Nascar team uses an in-race substitute driver, the points and driver pick of the original driver will be used.
PART 2 SCORING
The NPEL Scoring system will be based on where a selected pick finishes each week. A race win will score (-5) points. All other finishes will equal the number for points for that week. 2nd place (2) points. 3rd (3) points. 10th (10) points.......40th (40) points.
Points will accumulate over the course of the season. The goal of the league is to score as few points as possible.
STAGE POINTS - Starting in the 2018 season, stage point deductions will be given for each regular season points race. (Not during the all-star race). 1st place (-2) point. 2nd place (-1) point. 3rd place (-.5) point. This is only for the in-race stages and NOT for the final race finish.
ALL STAR RACE & NASCAR CUP CHAMPION - NPEL teams also picks for the winner of the ALL STAR Race held in May @ Charlotte Motor Speedway and the final season NASCAR Monster Cup Champion. The Pick for the Champion is due along with the race pick for week 27 - Chicagoland (the start of the Nascar Cup Chase). These are free picks and do not count against your 2 per season per driver picks. A winning pick for the all-star race or the cup championship will earn a team (-10) points off their championship standings and (-5) points off their chase bonus standings. A non winning pick will count for (0) points regardless of finish. An all-star race win (-10) will be immediately applied to the championship standings and applied to the Chase Bonus standings at the start of race 1 (week 27) after the chase tiers are set. A Cup Champion Winning pick will obviously be applied to both standings at the end of the season.
SCORING NOTES-
* NPEL's points system will be based solely on where drivers finish the race each week. We don't worry about encumbered wins or finishes.
* If there is a tie in points between two teams, the tiebreaker will go to the team with the most wins. If there is a tie in points between two or more teams in the money at the end of the season and the tie cannot be broken by wins, the multiple teams will split the payout for the two places in the standings.
PART 3 - THE CHASE BONUS
The Chase Bonus Program started in 2016 for the NPEL league. This is a winner take all, 10 race shootout at the end of the season which ALL TEAMS will qualify for. The Chase Bonus will run IN ADDITION to, not in place of, The Regular Season long Championship. The following is an explaination of the Chase Program and the rules for it. The program will not be nearly as convoluted as I make it sound.
The season point standings will be seperated into 3 tiers with each tier containing 1/3 of the teams in the standings. Tier 1 will contain the top 1/3 teams, Tier 2 the middle 1/3 teams and Tier 3 the bottom 3rd of teams in the standings. After the completion of race # 26 at Richmond, whichever tier your team is in is where they will start The Chase Bonus program.
At the start of the Chase the following week, race #27 @ Chicagoland a seperate set of standings will then be displayed and the points will be set as follows:
Tier 1 teams: 0 points
Tier 2 teams: 15 points
Tier 3 teams: 30 points
Each team will then be rewarded (-1) point for every win they have earned up to and including race #26. Any team that won the All Star Race pick will also be given their (-5) points at the beginning of the Chase. If there is a remainder of teams not divisible by 3, the higher standing tiers will have more teams. ( i.e. 32 teams would have 11 in Tier 1, 11 in Tier 2 and 10 in Tier 3.)
Teams will still only be submitting one driver per week during the Chase; so the aresenal of drivers each team has left themselves for the last 10 races of the regular season will be all they have available for the chase. In other words; for the last 10 races of the season each team will be picking one driver for two different contests; The Regular season championship and the Chase Bonus.
The scoring for the Chase Bonus will be exactly the same as regular season scoring (-5 pts. for a win, finishing position points for 2nd-40th) along with stage point deductions and the "Perfect race bonus" possibility. If a team correctly chooses the Nascar Monster Cup Champion their (-5) points will be added after Homestead race #36.
Chase Tiebreaker - the only tiebreak will be number of Wins in the Chase. If this can not break the tie then Co-Champions will be declared.
Remember, unlike the regular season championship which pays to out 20+%, the Chase Bonus pays out entirely to the Champion (roughly $10 per team entry for the season).
The highest finishing teams originating from the two tiers that don't include the overall Chase Bonus champion will receive $65 each. For example if the overall Chase Bonus champion comes from Tier 2; The team that finishes best originating from Tier 1 and Tier 3 will each receive $65
Though the goal of the Chase Bonus is to give teams that aren't doing well something to play for in the last 10 races, the Regular Season Champion CAN also win the Chase Bonus. This program will have no bearing on the League Championship and the High Stakes Championship.
PART 4 - HIGH STAKES OPTION
Want to raise the stakes for the season? Then the high stakes pool is for you. The cost for this is an additional $50 making the total league due $115. The first $65 will go into the Season Championship and Chase Bonus points fund. The additional $50 will go into a separate pool that all/only High Stakes eligible teams will compete for.
If you elect to be in the High Stakes pool you will have (HS) next to your team name in the point standings throughout the season. We will use the regular point standings for the High Stakes competition. The High Stakes pool will only be used in the main standings and will have nothing to do with the Chase Bonus. The same rules that govern the Season points standings also apply to the High Stakes Pool, including the only tie breaker being overall win total.
The payout for the High Stakes pool will use the same format as the regular points championship with 20%+ payout. (I.E. 1-5 teams would pay out to 1 team; 6-10 teams would pay out to 2 teams...etc). As always, 100% of the money raised in the High Stakes pool will go to payouts.
If you are interested in the High Stakes designation, or have any questions about it, please contact me to let me know. The deadline for entry into the High Stakes Pool is the beginning of race #5 at Fontana, and once a team declares for it, they can't back out. If less than 4 teams declare for the High Stakes pool then NPEL will cancel the program.
PART 5 - PAYOUTS
100% of all League entry fee's go into payouts.
The Regular season Championship and the High Stakes option pays out incrementally to the top 20% of entries.
The Chase Bonus pays out to the Champion; roughly $10 per team enrty (i.e. 40 teams =$400). Each highest finisher from the non-winning tiers will be rewarded $65.
After Week 5 in each season a dedicated page on the league website will list the payouts for the current season along with a clear breakdown of how the money was distributed,.
Payout totals are based on ALL LEAGUE ENTRIES BEING PAID. If an unpaid league entry needs to be deducted it will be proportionally deducted from all winners. (I don't anticipate a problem, we're all good people).
PART 6 - SUMMARY
The mission of NPEL is to have fun and bring a some interest to the once great and now boring, snooze-fest sport of NASCAR. If you have any questions about the rules or anything just let me know and I'll do my best to answer/clarify. I'd also like to hear ideas for how to make the league better in the future. In the first four years of the league we've grown from 23 to 52 teams. Very cool. As always, GOOD LUCK TO ALL TEAMS.
See Also: