Halfway To The Finish Line
Projecting the rest of the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross ChampionshipSelect a 450 rider from the dropdown -- displays their current rank/points compared to the projection. (250 graph is below)
The left chart is their rank. The right chart is their points.
"High" is if the rider repeated their best overall result of the season for every remaining week.
"Mid" is if they repeat their average overall result (from the first 6 weeks) over the rest of the season.
"Low" is if the rider repeated their worst overall result (ignoring DNS due to injury and DNQ) for every remaining week.
"Projection" is if the rider performs at the MotoXGraphs projection for the rest of the way.
The dashboard from Tableau above is clickable and hoverable (is that a word? it is now), so if something's not clear or is cluttered/hidden, you might be able to see more info by clicking/hovering.
Notes:
This assumes the riders are riding all of the final races (except Trey Canard, who has 5 of the final 6 since his injury timetable is still TBD). Some riders will get hurt, obviously, but that is not part of this projection.
The projected Rank for any one rider is assuming that all the other riders repeat their first half results exactly.
(Note: 250 projections don't have edits for riders currently injured (the 450's do), so some 250 guys with injuries might be incorrect.)
A look at some of the interesting projections:
450 MX
Skipping Ken Roczen and Eli Tomac because the various predictions all end with #1 for Roczen and #2 for Tomac. From there things get more interesting. (Keep in mind we're pretending no one gets hurt for the rest of the way.)
Marvin Musquin has only downside left. Barring injury or other catastrophe, he can't improve from 3rd to 2nd, but his worst-case scenario looks like #6. So if Musquin ends up #3 or #4--or even #5--I think he and his team would consider that a big success for his rookie 450 MX season.
Broc Tickle's range of possibility includes going up to #3, but that involves getting a 3rd or 4th the rest of the way. Unlikely but possible, considering his last two weeks. Also in play is him falling down to #9 if he reverts back to looking more like he did in Week 1.
Justin Bogle could get all the way up to 5th, which would be quite a surprise, considering that's also his highest 250 MX finish. More likely he hovers in the 9/10 range, which is still a major improvement over his 2015 season.
Justin Brayton has some expected improvement on his #12 spot since he'll almost certainly pass season-injured riders Cole Seely, Ryan Dungey, and Jason Anderson. But, he also has quite a bit of downside since he hasn't been as fast as Weston Peick, Matt Bisceglia, Phil Nicoletti, or Blake Baggett, who all trail Brayton in points but could pass him with a few favorable results.
Speaking of Blake Baggett, he has an interesting projection because he's ranked as one of the fastest riders but has missed several weeks from a collarbone injury. This means even his worst prediction has him improving from his #14 spot, passing the season-injured riders mentioned above (plus Josh Grant). Baggett's best result is limited by his current lack of points, though, and to get all the way up to, say, 3rd, he needs to average a 3rd/4th finish (39 points per week) rather than 6th/7th finish as he did last week (30 points).
Matt Bisceglia has an interesting one since he's had good speed but also didn't get points from the first two weeks since he wasn't riding. His high projection has him 10th, which would be a very good result for him and also isn't crazy optimistic since he's looked better as he's adjusted to his new team and bike. His problem might be that he's a fill-in until James Stewart returns, but maybe Bisceglia's performance so far will be enough for them to keep him on to finish out the season.
Weston Peick, currently 20th, has a projection that's all over the place. His worst result was 0 points and he's had two other motos with 0 points, so there's no guarantee that he improves in the standings despite good speed when he can avoid trouble. But on the other hand, his best result included a 7 / 9 for 28 points, so if he can do that consistently it's possible he gets back into the Top 10.
Posted by: SagehenMacGyver47 :: As always - Feedback welcomed