No Need to Wait: J.R. Todd is the next NHRA Rookie of the Year
Written by David Lamm · October 4, 2006
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Photo: NHRA Communications
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Sorry Hillary Will. Should have come out next year, Jack Beckman. Alan Bradshaw, thanks for playing. Not a chance Shaun Carlson. With three races left in the 2006 NHRA POWERade Drag racing season, one thing is for sure. J.R. Todd will be crowned the Auto Club Road to the Future Award winner, the NHRA’s equivalent to other sports’ Rookie of the Year award.
NHRA.com: Todd, Burkart, Anderson, Stoffer win as points battles again are shaken up
Admittedly, prior to the season I was all over Hillary Will and thought the Rookie of the Year award would need to be ripped from her hands. Apparently it has taken just 16 races and three wins to do just that. Any follower of drag racing already knows that Todd’s unbelievable run during the ‘Western Swing’ in the middle of the summer was just incredible. Now that Todd has added another Wally trophy to his mantle he better start making room for an even bigger trophy, the Automobile Club of Southern California Road to the Future Award.
Wait a minute! A quick glance at the NHRA Top Fuel points and Hillary Will is ahead of Todd in the POWERade point standings. Will currently holds down the No. 9 slot while Todd trails her by 38 points. That equates to just fewer than two rounds of racing. Keep in mind that Todd has only attended 16 of the 20 races run while Will has competed in all of them. So a head-to-head comparison has Todd with three wins in 16 races and Will with zero wins in all 20 races. Will has advanced to the semifinals twice and the finals just once while Todd has also been to the semis twice but the big difference comes in the final rounds. Every time Todd has advanced to the finals, he has won. Further cementing his claim for the rookie award, he knocked off some heavy hitters to get those three wins. Just in the finals alone, he beat Tony Schumacher twice during the string of wins in the summer and knocked off Melanie Troxel in Reading, Pa. Troxel was the hottest driver to start the year and led the points for the first 12 races. Did we mention that both Schumacher and Troxel both drive for Don Schumacher Racing? It is not as if JR Todd is getting cheap wins against inferior cars that somehow backed into the finals on the benefit of red lights and tire smoking upsets.
In my opinion the only way Todd loses the NHRA’s Rookie of the Year Award is if he fails to show up at the next three races and Hillary Will rips off three wins in a row. Highly unlikely that either one of those will happen. We all know that it is not how you start but rather how you finish when it come to how you will be judged in sports. For those looking to dethrone Todd, it might just be a little too little, a little too late.
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