Alternative voting systems in stock car racing

The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) is currently the No. 1 spectator sport in the United States. However, the manner in which drivers are ranked to determine the final winner of the championship relies on a somewhat arbitrary point assignment, including bonuses and penalties. In this work, we compare the results of alternative voting methods to determine NASCAR rankings for the Sprint Cup Series. Each of these methods have desirable theoretical properties, and all make use only of the final placement of each driver in each race. We then construct a set of metrics to determine the effectiveness of each of these voting methods when compared to one another and the actual NASCAR scoring system. Finally, we attempt to generate more optimal methods, as defined by those same metrics, using a real-coded genetic algorithm. Our results show that most of the alternative voting methods vastly outperform the actual NASCAR system in terms of those metrics. Likewise, the ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: GECCO
• Authors: Aaron Garrett, Daniel Eric Smith
• Keywords: Actual Nascar, Alternative Voting Methods, Artificial Intelligence, GECCO 2009, Voting Methods