Defending a championship can be a complex challenge but the ADRL’s Battle for the Belts competition is in a category of its own.

In the NHRA Full Throttle Series, a champion has six races to fend off nine other championship-minded drivers. The ADRL determines its championship in a one-day, sudden-death playoff system.

Drivers in all of ADRL’s categories were given nine races to earn a place in the top eight of point earners. From there, they pair up in a special bracket to battle it out until one driver is left standing.

If you qualified well in the points, you race only two rounds. If you got in by the skin of your teeth, you have to score three victories if you hope to carry the No. 1 in 2011.

Defending a championship can be a complex challenge but the ADRL’s Battle for the Belts competition is in a category of its own.

In the NHRA Full Throttle Series, a champion has six races to fend off nine other championship-minded drivers. The ADRL determines its championship in a one-day, sudden-death playoff system.

Drivers in all of ADRL’s categories were given nine races to earn a place in the top eight of point earners. From there, they pair up in a special bracket to battle it out until one driver is left standing.

If you qualified well in the points, you race only two rounds. If you got in by the skin of your teeth, you have to score three victories if you hope to carry the No. 1 in 2011.

The way the bracket is configured, the top seed gets a bye run into the semi-finals. The last two seeds must run one another for the right to race the No. 2 seed in the semi-finals.

“Mentally it is a big challenge,” said Spiro Pappas, who won last year’s Extreme Ten Five championship from the No. 8 seed. “You need a lot of guts and a lot of energy to keep up all that momentum that needs to be there for this one day event.”

Just as Pappas won from the last available seed in 2009, having the top seed and seemingly easy road to the finals isn’t always a sure victory. Just ask Jason Scruggs.

Scruggs has won the regular season title twice but both of his ADRL championships came from lesser seeded positions.

“It is exciting and it is tough,” said Scruggs, who entered the 2010 competition as the eighth seed. “I believe it is tougher in a way as far as the championships go. We have run this series for four years and I won the points two years, just outright won the points, but I didn’t win the championship those years. When I didn’t win the points I won two championships because I just happened to have my act together that day.”

This kind of outcome sometimes leaves Scruggs puzzled. However, in the end, he believes it all averages out.

“I look at it that it all balances out in the long run the way they do the deal here,” admitted Scruggs. “It is a lot of pressure. It is like the Auto Club World Finals for the NHRA if four or five drivers were going in there and whoever went the farthest won the championship. That would be about the same deal as this.”

Scruggs, who admits he runs fast on a budget, believes this format is the great equalizer when it comes to bank accounts and racing budgets.

 “Yeah it is anybody’s race,” Scruggs said. “The top eight is anybody’s race. Everybody that is in there at some point has run 3.60s in my class. That tells you anybody can win. It is just a matter of who has their act together at the right time.”

Robert Hight, the 2009 NHRA Throttle Funny car champion, is working this weekend's ADRL LenMar Motorsports World Finals as a guest reporter.

 

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