J.R. Todd made the most of his off week, but now it\u2019s time to get dialed in for a strong push to the U.S. Nationals and the Countdown to the Championship NHRA Playoffs. The 2024 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Season resumes Aug. 16-18, 2024 at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, Minn.<\/p>\n
With two full weeks off between races at Sonoma, Calif., and Brainerd, Minn., Todd was ready for some down time and knew the perfect place to take his mind off drag racing while spending relaxing time with friends.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to the Knoxville Nationals, which is basically the Indy 500 or U.S. Nationals for winged Sprint Cars,\u201d Todd said. \u201cI got to see a bunch of my old buddies I hadn\u2019t seen in a while. It was a good getaway to take my mind off drag racing more than anything. I always think it\u2019s good to get your mind off things especially when you have two weeks off to sit and think about things. You can wear yourself out. It\u2019s nice to go out there and have some fun with some old buddies I don\u2019t get to see too often \u2013 it\u2019s a good stress release.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the stress now released, it\u2019s time to focus on the final third of the NHRA season. With two races remaining in the regular season, Todd is fourth in the NHRA Funny Car point standings \u2013 46 points behind third-place Matt Hagan, 89 points behind second-place Bob Tasca and 122 points ahead of fifth-place Ron Capps. The next two races are all about finishing the regular season as high as possible to assure the best-possible starting position in the Countdown to the Championship NHRA Playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been thinking about it since we were leading the points early this season,\u201d Todd added. \u201cEvery round, every qualifying point; everything matters. It matters because we\u2019re coming into the part of the season where you want to be as high in the standings as possible entering the Countdown. Now\u2019s when we really need to go to these later rounds to at least keep pace with the guys around us, but it would be nice to get ahead of them. First place definitely isn\u2019t gonna happen for us. Is it important? Yes, but second would be a great way to start the countdown, and we have two races to make it happen. More than anything else, it would be nice to start building momentum going into Indy and the playoffs. That\u2019s when you really want to start heating up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brainerd International Raceway has not been kind to the 2018 NHRA Funny Car champion over the years. He\u2019s never won there and never been to a final round in the land of 10,000 lakes, yet he knows it\u2019s the kind of atmosphere in which he should be comfortable.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a unique atmosphere,\u201d Todd said. \u201cI\u2019d compare it to where I just came from, Knoxville, Iowa. The fans like to camp out and have a really good time. They\u2019re really supportive, and that means a lot as a driver. I haven\u2019t done well at Brainerd in the past so it would be nice to reverse that.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the teams are testing at Brainerd Monday getting ready for the U.S. Nationals and the Countdown to the Championship Playoffs so it\u2019s a pretty important event for sure. I like to test with everybody to kind of gauge where we are, not that everybody shows their hand, but you get a sense of how important it is in the season when everyone stays over to make test runs. It shows how important the U.S. Nationals and Countdown to the Championship are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also this weekend, Todd\u2019s teammate, 2023 NHRA Top Fuel driver Doug Kalitta, will start his 600th-career race \u2013 a monumental moment in his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was a younger guy, I remember when he came into the sport, and I was a fan of his because of his USAC background,\u201d Todd said. \u201cHe\u2019s definitely one of the GOATs of our sport, and now that he has a championship, he\u2019s accomplished just about everything there is to do in a Top Fuel car for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was originally published on August 13, 2024. <\/p>\n
The post Stress-Free J.R. Todd Set for NHRA Playoff Push<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" J.R. Todd made the most of his off week, but now it\u2019s time to get dialed in for a strong push to the U.S. Nationals and the Countdown to the Championship NHRA Playoffs. The 2024 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Season resumes Aug. 16-18, 2024 at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, Minn. With […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}