NHRA's 'Loser Appreciation Program' Is Giving 8 Also-Rans a Championship Chance

• Top Fuel star Tony Schumacher said having extra racers in the mix is “exciting” and right move by the NHRA.

• Dragster driver Justin Ashley calls it “not ideal” way to participate but that a winner from a bottom seeding would be legitimate.

• Austin Prock refers to his 12th-place status as “the charity" spot.

Top Fuel’s Billy Torrence isn’t racing at this weekend’s Pep Boys NHRA Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway, at the race he won last season.

But his remark at this Countdown to the Championship kickoff at Reading, Pa., last year that the format is the “Loser Appreciation Program” still echoes beyond the Pennsylvania hills.

Some wholeheartedly agree with him. Some don’t. The reality is that eight additional racers in Top Fuel, Funny Car, and Pro Stock are in the title chase along with the 10 who qualified.

What has become known, in the vernacular, as “The Billy Torrence Rule,” is the second-year policy that that any driver who attends all races and makes at least two qualifying passes is entered in the chase for the series title. It’s named after the Capco Contractors founder and part-time Top Fuel driver, because he proved in 2019 and 2020 that a racer doesn’t have to compete at every single “regular-season” event to qualify for the Countdown’s top 10.

Torrence raced at only 10 of 18 regular-season events in 2019 and placed fifth in the final standings. In 2020, a schedule scrambled because of various local pandemic-related restrictions, the NHRA scrapped the Countdown. But Billy Torrence continued his part-time agenda and wound up third.

Top Fuel owner-driver Mike Salinas skipped three races in 2019, qualified fifth for the Countdown, and wound up No. 7. Erica Enders had skipped several summer races in 2014 and won the Pro Stock championship, as well. (She said that happened because team owner Richard Freeman decided to go on vacation and not a matter of Countdown strategy. “ So that was kind of one of those lucky deals,” she said. “It was written in the stars. It was God's plan. However you want to look at it, but that's not something that I would recommend.”)

In 2019, Billy Torrence’s son, the four-time and current Top Fuel king Steve Torrence, said, “How’s it going to look if my dad goes out and wins the championship and he raced 16 of the 24 races?” Evidently the NHRA thought about that, too, and enacted the inclusion rule.

Not everyone dislikes it.

“This is the first time where we’ve had a Countdown with more than 10 cars fighting for the Top Fuel title. There are 12 teams battling it out this year, and that’s exciting. And I’m one of those that believes this is the right decision,” Top Fuel’s No. 10-seeded Tony Schumacher said. “I think that if a team shows up, runs every race, makes a few qualifying runs, they deserve to be there. We are fortunate that we didn’t get in that way. We got into the Top 10, and stayed in the Top 10, based on the way we performed, and we’re proud of that.”

Clay Millican and Austin Prock missed the elite-10 tier in Top Fuel but qualified for perfect attendance. Prock is entering the Countdown on the heels of six opening-round defeats, and he said at Indianapolis two weeks ago, “Unfortunately, I’m getting used to this going-out-first-round thing. Hopefully we can turn this thing around in the Countdown. Looks like we’re getting the charity spot, and we can hurt some feelings then.”

In the Funny Car category, Jim Campbell has made the Countdown as No. 11 two years in a row. And last year he expressed no shame in taking the alternative route. He said he followed the ruled and there was not only entitled to compete for the championship but happy and proud to have the chance.

Top Fuel contender Justin Ashley, ranked No. 3, said he would consider one of the non-top-10 racers a true champion if he were to win.

“It's legitimate because he's in. The rules state that is one way to qualify for the Countdown. Obviously it's not ideal. You want to be in the top ten. Your goal still is to be in the top ten and put yourself in the best position to win,” Ashley said. “But truth be told, if they start 11 and 12 and if they are up there around Pomona, competing for the championship, they deserve to be there, anyway.

“So, that's something that we just have to focus on, controlling what we can. It just adds two more really good cars to the mix, but that's been the way it's been all season, anyway. Austin and Clay both have great cars and from our perspective,” he said. “It doesn't affect anything that we do. It doesn't affect our approach. Our approach is the same in the Countdown as it was during the regular season: run as fast as we can in whatever lane that we're in and take it one round at a time.”

The biggest beneficiary this season is Elite Motorsports. Freeman’s Pro Stock operation added four non-qualified, non-top-10 racers: Bo Butner, the 2017 champion, who was 11th at the cutoff, and the Cuadra family trio of Fernando Sr. and Fernando Jr. and Cristian. Pro Stocker Deric Kramer also parlayed his “sub-10th” spot into a Countdown opportunity.

But in the previous 14 years of the Countdown, only six racers across all four Camping World Drag Racing Series pro classes have earned the crown from a below-fifth-place start. Funny Car’s Robert Hight is the only one to win a title from 10th place.

No one has won from eight or ninth. Matt Hagan won one of his three Funny Car championships from No. 7 (2014), and Pro Stock Motorcycle racers Eddie Krawiec (2008) and L.E. Tonglet (2010) came from seventh. Brittany Force sprang from No. 6 in 2017 to capture her only Top Fuel title, and Matt Smith picked up one of his five championships in 2018 from the No. 6 berth. And all that happened before the new, more lenient rule.

So being allowed into the championship-eligible field, even with points reset in increments of 10 to manipulate the drama, chances of winning the title are slim. The advantage of accepting the offer is that racers can use the “accomplishment” in their sponsorship pitches, for example. And they can compete with a purpose greater than a spoiler role.

No matter what opinions are flying around about it, Top Fuel racer Doug Kalitta was right in saying, “Everyone has a shot at the championship in the Countdown.” In this everybody-gets-a-trophy age, it offers more “Wouldn’t it be cool if . . . “ moments and more scenarios. And that’s the kind of drama the NHRA had in mind when it introduced the Countdown in 2007.