Gluckometer Ratings: Measuring Crowd Noise During Driver Introductions

This season, SB Nation measured the crowd noise during pre-race driver introductions with a handheld decibel meter and published the rankings each week.

We took measurements from NASCAR fans at 29 races overall, so there was a decent-sized sample to work with for our cumulative season rankings.

Typically, drivers are introduced to the crowd before a race in reverse order of how they qualified: The driver with the 43rd starting position comes out first, followed by 42nd, 41st and so on.

But at Homestead, NASCAR changed things up. It introduced the starting 43 drivers, but held out championship contenders Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin – saving them for last.

Phoenix NASCAR fans seemed to be in a good mood on Sunday, offering more cheers than usual for drivers who normally get booed.

For example: Jimmie Johnson actually got a fair number of cheers to go along with his typical boos, and Jeff Gordon received mostly cheers instead of his usual 50/50 mix.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed NASCAR for more than one week that Dale Earnhardt Jr. received the most cheers at Talladega – the capital of Junior Nation.

Just how popular is Dale Jr. at ‘Dega? His winning margin in SB Nation’s weekly noise meter was one of the largest of the season.

Fans at Martinsville clearly had no interest in seeing Jimmie Johnson win again, as they made their feelings toward the four-time defending Cup champion known by showering him with boos in driver introductions.

Johnson’s boos registered the highest decibel number on SB Nation’s noise meter, ahead of Dale Earnhardt Jr.‘s cheers.

This is somewhat unbelievable, but it had been since Daytona in July that Dale Earnhardt Jr. got the most crowd noise during pre-race driver introductions – at least in the six races where SB Nation’s decibel meter was used.

That seems crazy, but look at who had gotten the loudest reaction since then:

Southern California native Jimmie Johnson got more cheers than usual at the closest track to his hometown of El Cajon, but he also got a ton of boos as well.

That added up to the most noise of any driver and the only one to top 90 decibels on our noisemeter. Even Kyle Busch, who was roundly jeered, couldn’t manage that much noise.

Who do NASCAR fans dislike more than Kyle Busch? The invisible Kyle Busch, apparently.

We’re not entirely clear on what happened Saturday night, but this much we know for sure: Busch was introduced twice during driver introductions at Richmond.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.‘s lackluster qualifying performance left him behind several other drivers in the Gluckometer ratings this week.

The crowd always warms up and gets louder as drivers are introduced, so those toward the front of the field usually receive more noise than those in the back.

Allowing drivers to speak as they were introduced to the crowd completely shook up the Gluckometer noise ratings this week, knocking Dale Earnhardt Jr. out of the top 10 and boosting names like Jeff Green and Todd Bodine into the top 15.

Brad Keselowski’s “Kyle Busch is an ass!“ comment recorded the loudest-ever crowd reaction since we started using the decibel meter to measure noise.

Though a steady rain fell during driver introductions at Daytona, fans still provided plenty of noise to measure with our decibel meter.

And there was no surprise who received the most noise: Dale Earnhardt Jr., who won the Nationwide Series race in the No. 3 car a night earlier.

For the first time since Dover, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was not at the top of the prerace driver introduction noise rankings.

At New Hampshire, the decibel meter used to calculate the Gluckometer measured Jeff Gordon with a larger crowd reaction than Earnhardt Jr. – although not by much. It was likely a product of fans reacting to Gordon’s aggressive driving at Sonoma.

As expected, Jeff Gordon was given a rousing ovation at Infineon Raceway, which is mere miles from his hometown of Vallejo.

But it wasn’t enough to top Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Michigan may perhaps be the place where the majority of NASCAR fans finally separated Kurt Busch from his younger brother Kyle.

Busch, the pole-sitter, recorded a sizable amount of cheers as he was introduced to the crowd before the race.

The Gluckometer had a slight malfunction this week, as the decibel meter typically used to measure the crowd noise was affected by the BOOM BOOM BOOM bass beat of the music playing as the drivers came across the stage.

So we had to resort to a backup system: The old-fashioned ears. With the help of Tania Ganguli of the Orlando Sentinel, here are the ratings for driver intros on a 1-10 scale.

Since there were two races on Saturday, we’re doubling your pleasure with two editions of the noise ratings, which are taken by a decibel meter every week during driver introductions to see which drivers get the most noise.

You’ll notice the All-Star edition of the rankings features an unusual entry at No. 5: Brian Vickers and Casey Mears.

As Kyle Busch has said in paraphrasing the late Dale Earnhardt, it doesn’t matter if he gets booed. He just wants the most noise.

He got both at Dover, topping the Gluckometer ratings for the second time this season (he earlier got the most noise in his hometown of Las Vegas).

If there’s any track that attracts old-school fans, you’d think it would be Darlington.

That might help explain a shakeup in the Gluckometer ratings this week: According to our decibelmeter, Jeff Gordon got the most noise in pre-race introductions for the first time this season – mostly on the strength of some loud boo-birds.

One of the biggest ongoing mysteries in the Gluckometer ratings every week is the surprising lack of noise for Denny Hamlin.

Hamlin was anointed as the top preseason threat to Jimmie Johnson, was in the headlines for his clash with Brad Keselowski and has become a regular presence at the front of the field.

The Talladega crowd wasn’t quite as loud as expected, but the result was certainly predictable: Dale Earnhardt Jr. got the most noise in the capital of Junior Nation.

There weren’t too many surprises this week, other than David Reutimann almost making the top 10 (he was driving a University of Alabama car) and Carl Edwards receiving more boos than normal since the Brad Keselowski incident (Keselowski typically gets mildly booed every week, but this week was mildly cheered).

They say everything is bigger in Texas – including the boos, apparently.

In a rare example of boo power, a negative crowd reaction won for the first time since the Gluckometer went to the more scientific decibel meter (as opposed to using ears).

There was no Gluckometer in Phoenix – at least the actual decibelmeter itself. So in lieu of measuring the crowd noise scientifically last weekend, SB Nation asked some aspiring NASCAR writers to help out: Toby Christie of RubbingsRacing.com, Michael Myers of Queers4Gears.com and Farrah Kaye, who contributes to several sites.

We asked each of them to rate the drivers on a 1-10 basis using an old-fashioned tool: Their ears. After receiving their rankings (1 being the least, 10 being the most), the scores were added up and averaged out, which gives us this week’s Gluckometer ranking.

Despite the terrible weather on Sunday (the day the Martinsville race was originally scheduled to run), there were enough fans who braved the bone-chilling temperatures and rain to fill the Gluckometer with noise ratings.

The stands may have only been half-full at the time, but the fans in attendance made their voices heard.