Hey Mswood, I'm getting curious about all these stats you are making for the teams. I always wanted to have some such form of information. But I never got around to putting it together. What I am wondering about is what is the algorithm you have for the calculation?
I suspect it is some way of averaging finish positions but my mind starts going to different directions thinking about how to deal with diminishing number of teams as the race goes on and on how the competition starts to get stiffer as the race goes on.
Is there some way to re-normalize the averages to build in a component of excellence for racing against high-powered competitors?
Well oo this site I simple use there placement at the end of the leg. With no conversion for the decreasing number of positions on a leg. Thats why you will notice that a team like Bama's number for the last two episodes (and to the end) will only go down. Since their average is actually higher then the number of positions left in the race.
At one time I did use a conversion for number of legs so that each leg. Where it converted all the positions of a leg between 1 (being first place and last being 10th).
So if you were 12th place like Bilal and Saeed in leg one you got a 10, Vipol and Arti would get about a 9.3.
While as an example the teams int he final three (usually two episodes) would be a 1 for theteam checking in 1st, a 5 for the team checking in 2cd and a 10 for the team checking in 3.
I stoppped that since people 1 found it harder to follow, and that people really disagreed with teams who managed to be around through good portions of the race could still recieve the same score as the team that was first out.
As for your idea of giving a formula to reflect difficult of tasks amoung body types, I would have never thought about that. But the nly problem I see with that is I would also have to figure out one for navigation (and unlike tasks where we see a god portion of tasks being done, we only get a small fraction of scees showing driving, I would also need skill sets. For example in the climbing of the Great Wall, the Archery and the rowing. If you have the skill sets necessary those aren't difficult tasks.
For example I am a skinny weak white guy, but I actually a descent Archer, even have hunted with Bow and Arrow before. In the wall and the rowing almost everyone did it wrong making hte task a lot more physically tough. For the wall two of the fastestover were the Cheer leaders, who did it properly. Hardly teh strongest team.
Then you also have to do puzzle skills, how do I figure that. Or the ability to follow the clues (eric and Jeremy easily not the sharpest team ever was exceptionlly good at following the clues instructions.
Teams have said that Tyler & James are the brightest, yet they have been good with putting puzzles together, following patterns, best ways to get verbal clues to cab drivers.
So on that, I don't honestly think anything I could come up with would actually come close in representing the facts. There's just to many variables.