Ron Capps was sitting in the P.R.O. meeting, listening to President Kenny Bernstein explain the NHRA's new point system that would apply to the Countdown.
 
Immediately, the techie Funny Car driver whipped out his cell phone and excitedly sent a text message to his crew chief, Ed "The Ace" McCulloch.
 
Ace fired back a message of his own.
 
"He sent me some words I can't repeat right now," Capps said with a laugh. "I think that's what most of the crew chiefs were like. You know, why, right now, in the middle of season?"
 
But the NAPA Dodge driver tried to reassure him.

 

Ron Capps was sitting in the P.R.O. meeting, listening to President Kenny Bernstein explain the NHRA's new point system that would apply to the Countdown.
 
Immediately, the techie Funny Car driver whipped out his cell phone and excitedly sent a text message to his crew chief, Ed "The Ace" McCulloch.
 
Ace fired back a message of his own.
 
"He sent me some words I can't repeat right now," Capps said with a laugh. "I think that's what most of the crew chiefs were like. You know, why, right now, in the middle of season?"
 
But the NAPA Dodge driver tried to reassure him.
 
"I wrote him back in my text that, hey, I feel pretty comfortable. We qualified well this year," Capps said. Indeed, he has qualified No. 1 three times and has started no worse than sixth on 10 occasions.
 
Capps conceded, "Maybe it's not the best timing in the world, but personally, I love it. I think it's another way to spice up (the Countdown).
 
The NHRA, swiping a page from the IHRA playbook that for two years has included the "Last Man Standing" points program for top qualifiers, threw a new wrinkle into every crew chief's Countdown strategy. The NHRA announced at the U.S. Nationals that along with recognizing national records on the 1,000-foot course that would offer 20 points each, it will institute a points system for pro qualifying sessions.
 
Each of the Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock, and Pro Stock Motorcycle teams with the quickest elapsed time in each qualifying session will receive three points. That means a team could gain a maximum of 12 points each weekend in qualifying alone. Teams posting the second- and third-quickest times in each qualifying session will receive two points and one point, respectively.
 
Capps said he thinks this latest twist "was brought on by teams, myself included, talking about us testing on Saturdays or testing at races because we could not go test somewhere else. So we had to pull these things out of the trailer that we have been wanting to go try, and the only time to do that is to get in the show on Friday, know that you're qualified, and then pull out something you're going to try on Saturday," he said. "It's under race conditions and you can emulate good traction, you can throw the part on there, and see if it works or if it's going to not work.
 
"But I've got a little bit of grief about it, talking about testing all the time on Saturday," Capps said However, he added, "The fact of the matter (is) every team tests on Saturday. You don't just go back up there and run the same exact run you ran on Friday afternoon, the same conditions. You are going to try something different, whether it's tire pressure, wheelie bar height, whatever it is. So every team is testing the limits to see how far they can go.
 
"Now with this bonus point, will that team reel it back in, to make sure you get down the track? Yeah, and you're going to have some teams that are probably going to step over that edge of their comfort zone and try to be one of those top three in qualifying to gain those points. So it's going to be fun to watch. You know what? We may not gain these points. We may not be one of these cars. I feel confident we can be, but it's going to be fun to watch."
 
His teammate, Jack Beckman, said he and his MTS/Valvoline Dodge team "have proven that we can win from any position" but that the new point system is causing him "to kind of micro-manage each qualifying session now."
 
Bob Tasca, driver of the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Shelby Ford Mustang, said, "I think it can play to our advantage. The more consistent a race car is over the course of the weekend, they will benefit with the new point system and we think we'll be one of them."
 
Making his first Countdown field, surprisingly, veteran Funny Car driver Del Worsham said, "Every run means something, especially now. We're definitely going to pay attention to every point, because one point could make a big difference. Other than that, the goal is the same: Qualify the best you can and try to win every race."
 
The Al-Anabi Toyota driver said his "is a very fast car, and there are some very fast tracks coming up, and if we get some cool and dry conditions, like we had Sunday in Madison and Bristol, the two races we won, that will definitely help our chances. It's tough out here. The guy who won the championship last season [Cruz Pedregon] isn't even racing for it this year, which just shows you the level of competition in Funny Car."
 
Tim Wilkerson, whose Levi, Ray & Shoup coach turned into a pumpkin at the last minute at Pomona as a red light spoiled his Cinderella story, is like Capps, taking a wait-and-see attitude.
 
With the Countdown points recalibration already gaining him 280 points (from 350 behind leader Tony Pedregon to just 70 back), Wilkerson got a break.
 
"Everybody knows we were on the other side of this deal last year, going into the Countdown with a big lead in the top spot, so we'll see how it works out for us this way," he said. "Last year, it didn't matter that we came into it with the points lead, because we had to fight off all the hungry teams coming after us, and one of them got us. This year, we're hungry and we're in the pack that's chasing Tony.
 
"The other thing you have to be prepared for is how much the standings are going to change for the first couple of races in the Countdown. It's like the beginning of the season again, when you can go from the top to the bottom in one week because nobody has a lot of points yet and we're all bunched up together," Wilkerson said. "If we have a good weekend, we'll have to put it behind us and get right on it the next weekend in Dallas, because it can all be erased just as fast. If we don't have the kind of weekend we want, we'll have to put that behind us just as fast, knowing we can get it back in Dallas. We're heading into four races in four weeks, and by the end of this swing we'll finally have a better idea about how this is going to shake out."
 
Capps said, "I've been on both sides of that where anything could happen" and said he didn't know if the title can come by leveraging the qualifying points. However, he did say, "You're not going to win it in the first turn, but you can definitely lose it, and I think that's kind of the case here.
You have got to look at these bonus points.
 
"I know a lot of guys complain about this new points system for each session and you just have to look at it like this is a way 'I can gain three points per round,' not stand back and say, ‘Oh, my God, we have a chance of losing three points to somebody.’ It's just not a great way to look at it and not a very confident way to look at it. I think those are all going to play a big part."
 
Cory McClenathan, his Top Fuel teammate at Don Schumacher Racing, was a bit skeptical of but not totally against the new system
 
"I'm not a type of guy who likes to see change like that in the middle of a season," said McClenathan, who has qualified in the top three seven times this year. "But at the same time, it might work to our advantage. We normally seem to be one of the quicker cars during the qualifying sessions, but it might hold you back from standing on the gas and going for it because you don't want to smoke the tires.
 
"The tighter the points get, the more points we're going to want," he said. "So if we can go out there and qualify well each round, we'll get points for it. I guess in a way it can really help us. If it had been up to me, however, I probably would have said let's start this new points system next year. It will take a few of those qualifying rounds to make a difference, but earning more points is a good thing. Some of these championships have been won or lost by just a few points."
 
Tony Schumacher said he doesn't think the system favors any Top Fuel team over another, although he said that might not be true in other classes.
 
"There are so many cars running within hundredths of a second, maybe six or seven cars. It's no longer that one car going fast and everyone else just trying to figure it out. There are a numerous amount of cars just running similar. So it's going to be about even at the back of the pack, at each run, to be able to know what you've got to do and go out there, and just try to sneak that quick run in each and every time for those points. And I think the points will matter. I think Top Fuel is going to come down to just a massive battle at the end."
 
Schumacher proposed his own variation of the rules.
 
"I kind of wish they did one more thing. I kind of wish that on race day, low E.T. of each round got points," he said. "You know what? Funny Car would be fun to watch. The guys who stuff the car in real deep would be giving up points every time they do it, where Top Fuel most of the drivers (go in) fairly thin.  But I would like to see that. I would like to see where it's down to the battle and a race where you got a couple extra bonus points and you could even get beat and get points. It would be kind of neat to see."
 
He, too, questioned the timing but said the system itself is fine.
 
"Overall it's surprising that they came out with it right now where they have to get used to it with six races to go but I'm okay with it," Schumacher said. "I think we are one of the cars. Antron has one of the cars, Dixon has one of the cars. We are all going to benefit from that at some point during the season. It's a matter of who can do it. (Teams) can really add up the points quickly.
 
Pro Stock Motorcycle rider and 2007 champion Matt Smith said, "I think it's a bad idea to throw that out starting the Countdown. If we had known a lot sooner, it might have sunk in better, but to throw it on us two weeks before the Countdown starts is not a good deal.

"We'll see. Maybe it will play to our advantage," he said of his Nitro Fish Ultimate Gear Suzuki team, "but I think you'll see some of the riders who have not run like they should have in the last few races will step it up to get those points now."
 
While Pro Stock juggernaut Jeg Coughlin said the new points program "caught some of us off-guard," he said, "I don't think it is certainly anything negative that's been done. That's part of the hype." Rather, he said he looks at it as "an opportunity that's presented to all of us competitors. So it's part of the rules and something we'll just work with."
 
He said the new system will change his approach only slightly.
 
"You know, we are typically an extremely strong team on race day, and I think we'll filter some of that backward toward Friday and approach it just slightly differently," Coughlin said. "So was it necessary? I think it's exciting. The goal is to build excitement. So certainly I see it being a win/win for the Countdown."
 
But it can be a deal-breaker, too, he indicated.
 
"It can definitely have an impact, without question. Qualifying has not been our strong suit," he said, "but I think that's for a couple of reasons. One, we are not a team that likes to spend additional money and resources on going out and testing during the season.  A bad run to us is within two- or three-hundredth of a second and it's still a great side-by-side run and as a team we can gather some great data. On the fuel cars, the make-or-break can be enough smoke or a ball of fire, and that can certainly impact the fan experience.
 
"We're typically a conservative team but by Q3 and Q4 are a tad more aggressive, and we're typically in the top five," Coughlin said. "We'll approach it slightly differently coming into Friday's session and I think with the four straight races, it doesn't really allow us to go out and do much testing in between the races, maybe fine-tune on some things. But I've got a strong group of team members that will get this Jegs.com Chevy flying. Fortunately, we are starting in the top spot and we may need some of those points, but we'll see. The fans are going to be treated to some spectacular racing in Q1, 2, 3 and 4 and on Sunday, as well."
 
Allen Johnson is one of the drivers Coughlin said he expects to have to reckon with during the Countdown, and Johnson said he thinks the points possibility "favors us, maybe not as much as Mike Edwards [winner of nine Pro Stock No. 1 Qualifier Awards in 2009], but it does play into our hands.
 
"We've been among the best in the Pro Stock class during qualifying over the last two years," the fifth-ranked Team Mopar J&J Dodge driver said. "If we can continue or even better our track record during qualifying come the playoffs, the added bonus points will sure help our push to bring home a championship."
 
He has qualified in the top half of field in 16 of 18 events this year.
 
Greg Anderson, whose Pro Stock performance in the summit Racing Pontiac GXP has come around only lately, spoke for many when he said, "Although most of the racers, including myself, would have preferred to have some time to prepare for it, it's here, so we're going to do whatever we can to use it to our advantage."
 
 

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