And when a person is willing to take a permanent hit depends on the rounds and the situation, etc. For example at Atco this year, Frankie Aragona's teammate beat my car, driven by lee Zane, in the semis. Frankie at the time had a chance to win the national championship (since then he's done so well that the only guy who can catch him must win his last two races). Frankie, seeing that if he won the semis, he would win the race went all out in the semis, because for him that was the equivalent of the final round since his teammate had less of a chance at the national championship. On the other hand, if my car had won the semis, then Frankie would have not been as able to run all out in the semis, because he would have needed to save his index (i.e., protect his handicap) for the final round. And in doing that, he might have lost. That is in fact what happened to the driver of my car in the semis-he was trying to save index for the final and cut it too close. And just to be clear, my driver might have lost the race, but his strategy was the right one. He did what a good driver should do, try to win the round, but make sure you leave yourself in a position to win the race.
Comp is complicated because, as the example I gave you illustrates, there is a lot of strategy involved. Of all the classes in drag racing, it's probably the one that is most like circle track or road racing in terms of strategy. I hope you got a bit of a feel for how difficult driving in comp is-remember my car's best top end speed is 148.85 and in the round we ran that, our opponent's mph was over 205-it was at a national open where you can't do permanent damage to your index. And I didn't even begin to get into the strategy involved in qualifying.
All of this should illustrate just how good a racer David Rampy is. He's won so many times in comp and he works his butt off to protect his index. He's the best and the rest of us in comp just try to get close to him.
