Al Ackerman and Dot-com awards (1 Viewer)

[Professor Dave]

When you go to CAST YOUR VOTES - 2010 DOT COM AWARDS BALLOT, please consider voting for Al Ackerman for Sportsmen Driver of the Year. Al won the comp championship by the largest margin ever, won 5 races in seven weeks, including Brainerd and the US Nats, 35 rounds in a row, had the best average reaction time of any comp racer, and did all of those things without hitting his index permanently. Drag Racing Action has already awarded him the Sportsman Driver of the Year. And he builds his own motor (and mine too) too!

 

[Tim5636sc]

When you go to CAST YOUR VOTES - 2010 DOT COM AWARDS BALLOT, please consider voting for Al Ackerman for Sportsmen Driver of the Year. Al won the comp championship by the largest margin ever, won 5 races in seven weeks, including Brainerd and the US Nats, 35 rounds in a row, had the best average reaction time of any comp racer, and did all of those things without hitting his index permanently. Drag Racing Action has already awarded him the Sportsman Driver of the Year. And he builds his own motor (and mine too) too!

He got my vote! IMPRESSIVE SEASON to say the least!

 

[NYNitro86]

I voted for Al as well, I could've voted for Uncle Frankie but he's winning by a landslide so it's a good thing I didn't.

 

[Tim5636sc]

I voted for Al as well, I could've voted for Uncle Frankie but he's winning by a landslide so it's a good thing I didn't.

....and the sad thing, is to the high standards we have come to expect from him, honestly, Uncle Frankie didn't have that great of a season. There have been years when Mr. Manzo only lost one....maybe two rounds. Years when he NEVER had any competition. This season, he actually LOST three times in the first round. ......but he also won the other races

When I look to see who is most deserving of an end of the season award in the sportsman divisions, I focus on ONE stat. If you look at the point earnings report for an individual racer on NHRA.com you will see a figure on the bottom of the page which tells how many races they attended, and how many of those races they claimed points.

Looking at Uncle Frankie, he attended 13 TOTAL events in 2010. Out of those 13, he claimed points at 10...5 National 5 Divisional...5 National Event Wins, 4 Divisional Wins....(in all fairness to Mr. Manzo, he was not able to claim his 6th National Event win of the season, (at Charlotte 2) because he had claimed max points in that bracket.) His race to points ratio (13-10) was the BEST in sportsman drag racing.

But, this is standard fare for Uncle Frankie.

Al Ackerman had a Race to Points ratio of 14-8 (because racers in comp, Stock, Super Stock, Super Comp and Super Gas can only claim their best 3 Nationals and 5 Divisional)

Other NHRA Sportsman World Champs had a ratio of:

Reichert - 18-10
Stinnett - 16-8
Private Ryan - 18-8
Brad Burton - 15-8
David Tatum - 15-8

Using this logic, the obvious choice should be Manzo with his 13-10 ratio. But, this season I brought in another factor. I called it 'The Little Guy' factor.

Manzo's championship winning TAD uses a Blown Alcohol 500 cid + bad ass hemi to power his Al Anabi Racing sponsored rig.....

Al on the other hand races in one of Comp Elim's slowest classes (F/Dragster), is always being chased, (and if you've driven in any indexed class you know it's harder to judge the stripe and not either break-out or CIC yourself being the slower car), usually is racing by himself, and won this years US Nationals on a set of Goodyear tires he bought 6 years ago, (WITH OVER 600 passes on them!).

Although both racers had very good seasons.... I went with the little guy this year!

 

[shawn fleischmann]

Al on the other hand races in one of Comp Elim's slowest classes (F/Dragster), is always being chased, (and if you've driven in any indexed class you know it's harder to judge the stripe and not either break-out or CIC yourself being the slower car), usually is racing by himself, and won this years US Nationals on a set of Goodyear tires he bought 6 years ago, (WITH OVER 600 passes on them!).

Those were the original tires that he put on when he had his ProStart car built. That car is the poster child for consistency, and Al sure knows how to put his homemade horsepower and driving skills to best use with it.