It's actually pretty simple..Totally lost? Partially. The attempt on the microphone was to invoke a response from a racer whom I had interviewed 9 times previously this season. Rather than ask the same old tired questions, I thought it would be prudent to get an opinion on that statement. But back to the points... the UMP point system is very difficult to understand with throw-out nights and bonus points if you don't have a grid or stats sheet at your disposal. It would help to have some form of guidance from the sanction as to the different scenarios needed for each driver to win, similar to what NASCAR does when it's time to make their chase. Or like what MLB, NHL, NFL does when it's getting close to their post-season.
UMP points for normal car counts is 75 for 1st, 70 for 2nd, 65 for 3rd.. There entire break down is on their website.
UMP points provide bonus points in the form of one point for every car over 25 cars with a max bonus of 5 (so once you hit 30 cars, it doesn't matter how many more cars are there over 30, you still only get 5 bonus points). So when an event has 30 or more cars such as Mod Mania, the winners gets 80 points, 75 for 2nd, 70 for 3rd and so on.
UMP only counts the best 30 finishes for Modifieds.
Michael Long has over 30 wins, therefore all 30 of his finishes are 75 points or more (when he had wins with bonus points)
Mike Harrison has 20 wins, but has more of those wins with bonus points (that is how he is so close in the points to Long even though he has 10+ fewer wins). This is also why Harrison has some 70 point nights that he can still replace.
As far as scenerios on how the points can be won at Eldora, that is still a big undertaking to say because they run 4 feature events on Thursday and Friday along with one feature on Saturday.
If Michael Long were to win all 3 nights, that would add 15 points to his total.
Michael Harrison could run 2nd all three nights and add 15 points to his total. Any event he wins adds 10 points to his total, any event he runs 2nd in he adds 5 points to his total.
Since there are 4 features on Thursday and Friday, Long and Harrison could both win on those two nights and Harrison would still take the point lead because Long would add 10 points to his total and Harrison would add 20 points to his total.