The NHRA POWERade Countdown to One fields in Top Fuel, Funny Car and Pro Stock will be set during this weekend's Torco Racing Fuels NHRA Nationals at scenic Virginia Motorsports Park near Richmond, Va. There are several close battles to keep an eye on. Following the race, only the top four competitors in each pro category will be eligible to win world championships during a two-race shootout in Las Vegas and Pomona, Calif.

In Top Fuel, Bob Vandergriff Jr. is 21 points behind Brandon Bernstein, who currently holds down the No. 4 cutoff position. In Funny Car, with fourth-place driver John Force on the sidelines recovering from injuries suffered in a high-speed crash at the last event, Jack Beckman, Ron Capps, Gary Scelzi and Mike Ashley are all battling for the final two spots in the top four. In Pro Stock, Allen Johnson and Jeg Coughlin hold the third and fourth place spots, but Jason Line and Kurt Johnson are looking to crash the party.

Fans will remember the last race of the regular season, the Toyo Tires NHRA Nationals in Reading, Pa., for the amazing Cinderella run turned in by Top Fueler Doug Herbert, who leapfrogged three drivers -- Cory McClenathan, Melanie Troxel, and Dave Grubnic -- to clinch the eighth and final Top Fuel playoff berth with his first win in more than two years.

Also at that last regular season race, Craig Treble survived as the last man in the Pro Stock Motorcycle field when Matt Guidera and the Mohegan Sun team ended the playoff bid of Chris Rivas one round short of bumping Treble. But Treble didn't survive a second bout with fate when his playoff life was again out of his hands at the final Countdown to Four race for the bikes in Dallas. There, he could only watch helplessly as upstart Peggy Llewellyn beat No. 1 qualifier Chip Ellis in the semis and three-time defending champ Andrew Hines in the finals en route to her first career win to earn the fourth and final Countdown to One berth. The NHRA POWERade Countdown to One fields in Top Fuel, Funny Car and Pro Stock will be set during this weekend's Torco Racing Fuels NHRA Nationals at scenic Virginia Motorsports Park near Richmond, Va. There are several close battles to keep an eye on. Following the race, only the top four competitors in each pro category will be eligible to win world championships during a two-race shootout in Las Vegas and Pomona, Calif.

In Top Fuel, Bob Vandergriff Jr. is 21 points behind Brandon Bernstein, who currently holds down the No. 4 cutoff position. In Funny Car, with fourth-place driver John Force on the sidelines recovering from injuries suffered in a high-speed crash at the last event, Jack Beckman, Ron Capps, Gary Scelzi and Mike Ashley are all battling for the final two spots in the top four. In Pro Stock, Allen Johnson and Jeg Coughlin hold the third and fourth place spots, but Jason Line and Kurt Johnson are looking to crash the party.

Fans will remember the last race of the regular season, the Toyo Tires NHRA Nationals in Reading, Pa., for the amazing Cinderella run turned in by Top Fueler Doug Herbert, who leapfrogged three drivers -- Cory McClenathan, Melanie Troxel, and Dave Grubnic -- to clinch the eighth and final Top Fuel playoff berth with his first win in more than two years.

Also at that last regular season race, Craig Treble survived as the last man in the Pro Stock Motorcycle field when Matt Guidera and the Mohegan Sun team ended the playoff bid of Chris Rivas one round short of bumping Treble. But Treble didn't survive a second bout with fate when his playoff life was again out of his hands at the final Countdown to Four race for the bikes in Dallas. There, he could only watch helplessly as upstart Peggy Llewellyn beat No. 1 qualifier Chip Ellis in the semis and three-time defending champ Andrew Hines in the finals en route to her first career win to earn the fourth and final Countdown to One berth.

The championship field was set in dramatic fashion in Pro Stock Motorcycle (the bikes do not compete in Richmond) and finalizing the four-driver fields for the Countdown to One in Top Fuel, Funny Car and Pro Stock figures to provide much of the same edge-of-your-seat theatrics this weekend.

Countdown racers in teleconference

The national media was able to speak with four superstar racers this week who are all fighting for spots in the Countdown to One. Pro Stock driver Jeg Coughlin is currently in the field in fourth place but knows there are five drivers all capable of earning the final two spots up for grabs in his class. Defending Top Fuel champ Tony Schumacher is third overall, while Bob Vandergriff is just one round behind the bump in fifth. Funny Car hopeful Gary Scelzi is just five points behind fourth-place, a deficit that could be made up in qualifying at this weekend's second annual Torco Race Fuels NHRA Nationals, especially with John Force on the sidelines.

Here are a few select quotes from each driver on what they think it will take to make the cut and how they feel about the new Countdown to the Championship playoff format.

Q: What will it take for you to clinch a spot in the Countdown to One?

Coughlin: Well, it's going to take some great racing. We did some testing this past weekend down in Georgia, which should prove to give us a little more confidence going into Richmond. Ironically Richmond is the race I started back in the Pro Stock last year with Cagnazzi Racing, so that will be exciting to kind of have a one-year reunion there, and the reward we're looking for is to have a great outing. No question we have an extremely fast car and a great team, we just need to pull the strings together on that and get out there and race like we know how.

Schumacher: We need to stay focused, we need to go out and try to win this race in Richmond. We try to win every race. Unlike some of the guys that I've heard in Top Fuel lately that are focusing on one car, we focus on the race. We focus on the goal; the ultimate vision is to win the race, not to beat any individual team. It's just to win the race and win the round in front of us. It's way too easy to lose focus on what the goal is if you're focused on one car.

Vandergriff: Obviously, we need to have a great weekend. We're not just looking at Brandon per se. There're really three people in front of us that could lose first round, and if we go on to the finals or semifinals again, we could jump all the way up to second. We've got the best stuff ready and we're going to go there and try and qualify No. 1 and get the most qualifying points we can and just see if we can take it to them on race day.

Scelzi: I'm extremely excited. The bottom line is you have to do well. You don't want to go into Richmond and barely make the Countdown. You can't be lucky in Richmond and lucky in Vegas and lucky in Pomona and come out the POWERade champion. You're going to have to be good. So I like my chances. I like the way things are looking right now. You know, we just need to go there and we need to win. We need to win and we need to be in the final round, and that will take care of that. I know a lot of the teams plan on going to Vegas to test, possibly the week before, or that's definitely been talked about at Schumacher Racing, to try some things for Vegas and Pomona. I'm excited as hell about it. I'm excited as hell about having a shot at it. That's probably the biggest thing.

Q: What are your opinions on the new championship format?

Coughlin: The new points deal is extremely exciting. You look at the top four professional classes and you've got a lot of points battles going on for the Countdown to One, and I think that's exciting, and I'll tell you, I'm ready to go. Right now, I'm in fourth place. I think I'm within one round of third and within two rounds of sixth. That's the kind of points battle we're dealing with. I think we've got four of us, maybe five, vying for the last two positions for the Countdown to One. It's exciting.

Schumacher: I think all of it has been so exciting. I think what people need to know going in is when you're changing a points system, any crew chief, especially Alan Johnson, is smart enough to say, okay, where do we need to be at any point in the season and how do we get to that point. We've been trying some new parts on our car, we've taken the car out that we won the championship with last year, started in Reading and won Indy with it and had a couple parts breakages, but we're still one of the cars that have run extremely well. If we can get past that first round it seems we win the race.

In the beginning we thought, man, this is not a great deal. We didn't know if we'd enjoy it or not. But it's really been quite fun. It actually adds pressure three times. Instead of that one race at the end of the year where you're focused on, we're focused on three different sections of the season. Some of the drivers say I didn't earn it, I was given the points. Let me tell you something: I didn't ask for this. I think it's funny when I hear people talk about that they earned their championship. No, they didn't earn their championship. Read the rules. They were given to me at the same time they were given to everybody.

Vandergriff: As far as the competition side of it, it is our first time in there, but I'm not too concerned with that because it's all I've ever done my whole life is compete. I'm actually looking for the challenge. It's something I've been wanting to do my whole career, and now that it's here I'm pretty excited about the opportunity. When things get to where it's on the line and you have a chance to win and the big picture comes into play, I think everybody gets a little more excited.

Scelzi: This thing could go several different ways. We've seen how tough it's been just to qualify for an event in Funny Car. I can't remember the last time you looked and counted the cars and say, okay, who on this list is going to go home. You don't know. You can't pick a single-car team, a multicar team. There's no one safe in qualifying for an NHRA POWERade event, let alone this Countdown. It's a mess. Go out there, run the cars as hard as you can, keep your fingers crossed that there's a little luck and that you did your job and everybody on the car did their job.

What I don't like is eight drivers going from Indy to Richmond and then narrow it down to four and go from Vegas to Pomona just because…let's pick out Robert Hight out, for instance. Robert has been one of the dominant cars all year long. It would be a shame to see Robert stumble, have something break at one race and cost him a championship. It would be the same thing with Ron Capps or whatever.

Now, our team has just been hanging in there. We haven't been the dominant car, and yet we can slip in there and end up winning this whole thing by peaking at the right time. That's fun.