Schumacher, for an excellent example, said before the final two races of the year, "I personally don’t feel like we’ve had the most stellar year. I hope if we can win this POWERade championship again, it’s because we go out and win the last two races, not that somebody goes out -- three cars go out first run and one guy skates by. "
Just the same, he said he felt he would be deserving. "We’ve won most of the races amongst the whole Top Fuel field. If we do win this Countdown, I think it’s going to be because we earned it during crunch time," he said. "No matter which one of these four guys wins it, it’s going to be because they earn it. This is not going to be a 'gimme.' These are great drivers. I’m glad to have my name thrown in that pot.
"I think it has become more fulfilling than I thought it would be," Schumacher said. "No matter which driver wins it, I’ll be proud to walk over and say, Congratulations. You’re the champ. You deserve it. That’s cool. I said from the beginning: Don't care who wins the championship. I want it to be a race. I want it to come down to something exciting and not a bad part, not a bad piece, not passing the scales, not something that you can get around."
By the start of the season finale, he said he had decided, "I think the fans are going to get what they paid for. I think we’re going to get what we asked for, because we’ve won a lot of races."
He was prophetic. And Schumacher did earn it fair and square in 2007. Fuller fell in the first round. The rules were clear, if distasteful, and Fuller and crew chief Rob Flynn's season hardly was a disappointment. They shone despite sporadic sponsorship and earned even more respect of fans and fellow racers. But they served as examples, too, of the inequity of the Countdown format.
Ron Capps found himself in a similar boat on the Funny Car side. However, unlike Schumacher, using the luxury of an early lead to test during racing is what did him in, he said.
Capps had been hoping this was his special year, the year in which he would use the momentum of leading the Funny Car standings. Even Wally Parks had told Capps in what turned out to be their final conversation that he hoped Capps would win the championship this time after three runner-up finishes.
Considering his statistics, it looked as though 2007 might be his turn to shine. Capps had led the standings for 14 consecutive events in the 17-race "regular season" -- by as much as 154 points -- and had a better elimination-round record than the other three contenders at 32-18. The Brut Dodge driver would have led Pedregon by 18 points under the old system.
But that two-race showdown didn't go his way. Pedregon qualified second at Las Vegas, Capps sixth. Pedregon beat Ashley Force in the final there, while Capps lost in the opening round to Phil Burkart, who was filling in for John Force in the Castrol Mustang.
"Pretty much he just had to qualify," Capps said of Pedregon's chances at Pomona. "And barring a miracle, there was no way the three of us [Gary Scelzi, Robert Hight, and himself] were going to get around him. It's kind of a letdown that it happened so quickly, but that was a product of the Countdown to One. And hopefully NHRA will change that next year and give everybody a chance to dig
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As for his own hand in his fate, Capps said, "The motivation in the off-season is to try to learn what we did wrong this year, and that was starting to test. And if we get a big points lead again, like we did last year, we're going to stay after it. You just can't lay off like we did and start testing. But, you live and learn."
After J.R. Todd ended Larry Dixon's bid for a third Top Fuel championship in Sunday's quarterfinals, the always-realistic Dixon said, "If they didn't change the points format, we wouldn't have had a shot at the championship. So I applaud NHRA for stepping up and doing this big move. We had a shot to win. It was there for the taking. We just didn't get it done. Overall, we had a great season."
Bernstein, too, was pragmatic, saying, "That's what NHRA's looking for -- everything on the line for one run." He alluded to Schumacher's record-setting final-round blast that clinched the 2006 championship in the closing seconds of the season and said, "Now you can have the possibility of having that every year. That's what they do it for." Schumacher dismissed Bernstein in head-to-head competition in the semifinals, and Bernstein watched him win his fifth championship.
So the Countdown to One left Bernstein pleading, "Help a brother out -- I just want one."
Matt Smith got his first in the Pro Stock Motorcycle class.
"It was all or nothing there. It was a wild day," Smith said. "We had the best bike. I think we [would've] won under the old points system, too."
Ted Yerzyk, Fuller's public-relations representative at David Powers Motorsports, also noted, "Under the old NHRA points system, Fuller would have earned the championship by 139 points over Larry Dixon."
If the Countdown had been an improvement or had unfolded faultlessly, racers wouldn't be comparing traditional and new.
Light said as early as Labor Day at Indianapolis that he will be seeking input about the future formatting of the Countdown program.
Schumacher said he'd like to see the final phase expanded to three races. "Two races is tough. Hot Rod wins one, then loses one. That's a tough deal. Three races, maybe four. Maybe eliminate the second tier. I think maybe you need to keep 10 cars.
"If we didn't pull it off, if we weren't in the top eight and the Army had to be called an also-ran or a spoiler . . . It's too easy to get beat. These cars are too good. " he said, "I think there are some adjustments we can make. I think the format overall has been pretty fun. If you make it to the first tier, you should get something. I don't care if it's a deck of cards. But you try too hard to get there to get nothin'."
As for the idea of a monetary bonus to the leader after 17 races, Schumacher said it would be nice but understood that "the money isn’t always there. I'd like to see us get millions. The sport's growing and with the partnership that's coming up, it might get better. I'm sure it will. We do it because we love it. Yes, it would be fantastic, because this sport is expensive to run. It's expensive to win. It's not necessarily the budget. It's having the right people making the right calls. I watched Michael Schumacher when he raced, because he made $100 million. I didn't know what he did, why he was better, but that was pretty fascinating. We're working together to try to make it bigger for all of us."
The Top Fuel champion said the Countdown idea was conceived and enacted so quickly that no one had time to tweak it before it became law.
"It was just too quick. NHRA had an idea and put it out there, and everyone jumped on board and that was it," Schumacher said. "Now we have a year to figure it out, and hopefully they'll take a little input. I'm sure they will. Whatever the rules are, we just need to figure them out and work toward that."