In my AMA a few weeks ago, 3strokemx asked about how gate picks correlate to starting position so I dug into the numbers from this summer. Spoiler Alert: Better gate picks translate to a better chance at a good start position. However, there were some interesting tidbits in the analysis that you can take a look at. When I backdate my database with MX starting positions, I'll be excited to revisit this and see if there are any trends over the years. The graphs show the average 1st lap position for each gate pick.
After looking at these charts, as one would guess, a better gate pick correlates to a better starting position. However, the first gate pick in both classes did not have the best average starting position. In the 450 class, it was the fourth best average, a bit of a surprise.
The 250 class had a more linear trend line than the 450s but the averages were much higher in the top ten than in the 450s.
The top seven gate picks in the 450 class all averaged a starting position of 8th or better. In the 250s, only three of the top seven gate picks had an average starting position of 8th or better.
One thing that stuck out for me is the eleventh gate pick in the 450 class. It had a better average start position than the three positions ahead of it and was nearly 7.5 positions better than the twelfth gate pick.
The first and second gate picks in the 450 class boasted 12 of the 22 first lap leaders with the most coming from the second gate pick. Gates 1-7 all had a first lap leader with eleventh being the only other gate to get one.
The 250 class was more volatile after the first gate pick. The first gate pick had 8 first lap leaders and gates 3-8 all had at least one. Peculiarly, the second gate pick had 0 first lap leaders. Quite the contrary to the 450s.
Combining both classes, only 3 out of 44 motos saw the first lap leader come from a gate pick outside the top ten. That number goes down to just 1 when looking at gate picks outside the top twenty.
The three riders who led lap one from outside the top ten gate picks were Lance Kobusch (Hangtown, Moto 2, 22nd gate pick), Tom Vialle (Budds Creek, Moto 1, 13th gate pick), and Coty Schock (Thunder Valley, Moto 2, 11th gate pick).
They need to get rid of timed qualifying and go back to gate picks by points and stop prepping the track between races. The reason I say this is because timed qualifying promotes one lined tracks. Back in the day they put hay bails in the lines during practice to force riders to creat more limes.
That's awesome thank you for doing this.
I suspect allowing your closest competitor to pick first allows you the advantage to react. 22 riders so the first 11 guys might pick with an empty space in both sides, while the final 11 are always sandwiched between two presumably higher caliber riders?
Can you see if there was much difference in 1st vs 2nd motos? (Timed qualifying versus 1st moto finish)
Interesting analysis. As I was reading it occurred to me though that gate pick is a direct result of qualifying time, so the best gate picks go to the best qualifiers who you would expect to have the best position after lap one. In effect the data is just showing that fastest qualifiers have the best lap one positions - an entirely expected result.
Is it possible to show gate pick vs lap one position for a given rider over time?
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Yes, that is the expected result. However, the data presented here shows the 2nd fastest qualifier has the best position on the opening lap (on average).
Be interesting to see the raw data for that. Wonder if it was because Jett qualified fastest at most rounds but had a number of motos where he had first lap issues?
Was the intent here to try and see how gate pick affected start position?
Yes. But it's hard to quantify because there's no data for first turn position and confounded because gate pick matches qualifying position.
Still interesting to note that first gate pick / qualifying, didn't present an advantage over 2nd or 4th pick.
I factored in both the qualifying position for first moto gate pick and then the results from that, that determine the second moto gate pick. SMX did start to post the holeshot line positions this summer but I used the first lap data because the holeshot line can be so volatile in my opinion. Riders can move forward or back several positions right around the line since everyone is so close together.
Is there somewhere that has data on each riders position on each lap for pro races? I was trying to figure out Jett’s average position after the first few laps after hearing JT talk about how bad he thinks Jett’s first laps have been during Paris supercross today. I seem to remember a lot of insane opening laps from Jett where he forces his way to the front almost immediately, not sure what he’s referring to when he says his first laps are a problem?
The SMX results page has lap by lap positions when you click on each rider. I don't have anything other than lap one data in my db yet and I'm not sure if anyone has every lap pulled for actionable data. For now the only option seems to be clicking through each of his races manually
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