How'd They Do?

Final statistics for the
2004 NHRA season

12/8/04

TOP FUEL

Tony Schumacher's stats were pretty dominating. Let's look at what he did... His average qualifying position was 4.0 (2nd); average elapsed time 4.603 (1st); average mph 314.56 (4th). He was 60-13 for an 82.2 percent win/loss average; he averaged 3.2 rounds per event and completed 89 percent of this elimination runs. He qualified in the top eight 22 times; won 10 events; runner-upped three times; won three times on holeshots and won four times due to the opponent redlighting (there were only 13 redlights in TF this year, so Tony was a part of nearly a 1/3 of them. He also had the most first round wins with 21. Tony had the quickest first round e.t. (4.451 at the first Pomona race) and the quickest second round e.t. (4.467 at Reading).

Brandon Bernstein had quickest third round e.t. (4.462 at first Chicago race) and Doug Kalitta had the quickest e.t. in the fourth round (4.420 at the first Chicago race).

What about the other side of the stats? Everyone seemed to think Brandon Bernstein had a cache of redlights, but two other drivers had more; while Brandon had three, Larry Dixon had four and Dave Grubnic five. John Smith and Scott Weis chalked up 16 first round losses. Forty-one unique drivers qualified for 23 events...so why did most fields seem light to me? The first Chicago race had the quickest e.t. average (4.562) and fastest average mph (322.30).

ADVERTISEMENT

FUNNY CAR

Force, of course, dominated all the stats except reaction time. He's ranked ninth with a .092 (still above the class average of .096). Force averaged a 4.3 qualifying position, 3.1 rounds a race and completed 83 percent of his elimination runs without aborting the run. Interestingly enough, John was 2-5 in the holeshot department, 1-3 in redlights, and 5-7 in the fourth round. But what won John the championship was simply the fact that he was in the finals 12 times. He won 21 first rounds, 15 second rounds and 12 third rounds (twice as many third-round wins as the next guy, Gary Scelzi.) Force had the best overall e.t. in every round except the third round (Bazemore).

The other side of the stats. Eric Medlen had six holeshot losses, Ron Capps had 17 first round losses and Jeff Arend's record was 0-16. The event with the quickest e.t. was the second Pomona race with a 4.786 average. Of course those stats are somewhat skewed by the fact that during eliminations, there was only one non-aborted side-by-side race. One more stat worth mention: Gary Scelzi was 5-1 in holeshots.