Winning championships on losing runs ? (1 Viewer)

[Al]

Both Torrence and Hight won their championships on LOSING runs. That seemed to take the excitement out of it. I don't remember that ever happening before and it didn't seem right. I certainly see NHRA's stand on that and they got a lot of pressure to put that rule in place. But I would like to see them do away with the lane boundary penalties during eliminations at the World Finals only.

 

[Just Paul]

I agree.

 

[ZWeinstein]

I was confused about it to talking to Dave yesterday. I thought they got rid of centerline & oil down penalties during the countdown. Pretty anti-climatic to basically clinch the championship but have to make one more run yet not cross the centerline or hit the wall to make it official, which is why Robert did what he did in the finals. Same thing happened in 2012 with oildown penalties nearly deciding the top fuel title where Schumacher could have won the final but if he blew up he would have gotten an oildown penalty and lost the title. I would imagine for next year the centerline penalty will go away in the countdown because a penalty like that should not take a championship away after it was already won

 

[Professional Fan]

I was confused about it to talking to Dave yesterday. I thought they got rid of centerline & oil down penalties during the countdown. Pretty anti-climatic to basically clinch the championship but have to make one more run yet not cross the centerline or hit the wall to make it official, which is why Robert did what he did in the finals. Same thing happened in 2012 with oildown penalties nearly deciding the top fuel title where Schumacher could have won the final but if he blew up he would have gotten an oildown penalty and lost the title. I would imagine for next year the centerline penalty will go away in the countdown because a penalty like that should not take a championship away after it was already won

I think they did away with oildown penalties for the countdown but kept centerline penalties since they are considered more serious and safety violations. Robert mentioned on TV that his car died which is why he got out. He did the long burnout for the fans but then the car died-not what he was planning to do

 

[Dave]

It's just one more way for NHRA to drag it out even further than it has to be "you have enough points to win, but you might lose some so lets wait"... If I was Torrence or Hight I would have told them after their respective clinching round wins that they were just loading up and going home, so just give me the check and trophy now.

I remember when Bob Vandergriff made the countdown by making the finals at Indy one year, he almost wasn't even going to run the car to not risk dropping back out of the top 10.

I don't remember which years, but they had announced at one point the oil down point penalties would be waived during the countdown. I don't know how many times Robert has been over the centerline this year. If he hasn't, he would have only had a 5 point loss for crossing it meaning he still would have beat Beckman by 3 points. John lost 15 points early in the Countdown, I believe at Maple Grove he went across during friday night qualifying. It ended up not mattering in the end, but could have come into play had he gone rounds at Pomona.

 

[Butch]

Robert had DIVE ORDERS from the Don?

 

[Rat]

I remember when Bob Vandergriff made the countdown by making the finals at Indy one year, he almost wasn't even going to run the car to not risk dropping back out of the top 10.

I don't remember which years, but they had announced at one point the oil down point penalties would be waived during the countdown. I don't know how many times Robert has been over the centerline this year. If he hasn't, he would have only had a 5 point loss for crossing it meaning he still would have beat Beckman by 3 points. John lost 15 points early in the Countdown, I believe at Maple Grove he went across during friday night qualifying. It ended up not mattering in the end, but could have come into play had he gone rounds at Pomona.

I believe it was 2016 and Connolly.