NHRA pros battle for Countdown spots

For the dozen or so drivers who are on the Countdown championship bubble, the marathon has reached its sprint.

The Countdown to 10, NHRA’s 18-race regular season, is down to three final, climactic races in the professional categories of the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series.

The top 10 in points after the U.S. Nationals over Labor Day Weekend will qualify for NHRA’s Countdown to One — a six-event playoff that includes the penultimate Oct. 29-Nov. 1 event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The series halfway through a two-week break when teams get to recharge batteries and driver, crew and car get on the same page. Then the fields will be set based on the performance of those bubble teams at Brainerd (Aug. 13-16), Reading (Aug. 20-23) and Indianapolis (Sept. 2-7).

Funny Car has been the most competitive of the four pro classes all year and last week’s FRAM Autolite Nationals at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., was a perfect illustration of that fact: Of the top 11 drivers, only eighth-place John Force and ninth-place Mike Neff exited Sonoma in the same position in which they entered it.

And Robert Hight, in 12th place, went rounds for the second time in three races and is now less than a one round win from earning one of the 10 playoff spots.

By contrast, in Pro Stock there wasn’t a single movement up or down among the top 11 drivers.

Funny Car did have its first three drivers clinch playoff berths with Tony Pedregon, Ron Capps and Ashley Force Hood securing spots.

The competition for 20-point first-place bonus heated up as well in FC as Tony Pedregon became the third different points leader in the last three races.

Also clinching berths in the Countdown to 1 were Brandon Bernstein in TF, Greg Anderson and Allen Johnson in PS and Andrew Hines in PSM.

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