Okay, so, the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Man, that feels like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it? I remember being totally hooked that year. I wanted all data about it, So I decided to do a deep dive and, well, build something myself.
First, I started by just gathering everything I could. It’s all from Public information. I mean everything. Race results, driver stats, track info, qualifying rounds – the works. It was a mess, to be honest. Just a ton of web pages, and text files. My desktop looked like a digital explosion.
Then, I got to cleaning. Copy many different website information。This was the boring part, for sure. I spent hours – days, really – just copying and pasting, checking, formatting, and, I’ll admit it, sometimes cursing at the screen when a table wouldn’t cooperate. I used my text editor for most of it, lots of find and replace. It was tedious, but I knew I needed it to be clean before I could do anything cool.
Cleaning Data Step
- Copied data from web pages.
- Pasted into text file.
- Checked formatting for consistency.
Once I had all the raw data, I started thinking about how to organize it. I figured a simple database would be the way to go. Nothing fancy, just something to hold everything in a structured way. I ended up going with the most simple method, because I planned my text file and it should to do my thing quickly.
The whole thing was a learning experience. I messed up a bunch of times. There were moments I almost gave up. But, I kept plugging away, and eventually, I had something that worked. I could, finally, see all the 2016 season data, easily and quickly. It wasn’t pretty, but it was mine, and it worked.
It’s crude, It’s effective.
