NHRA News: National event oildowns at two-year low (4/28/2004)

National event oildowns at two-year low

4/28/2004

Oildowns by teams in the Top Fuel and Funny Car classes are at a two-year low, according to the statistics for the 2004 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series season through the O'Reilly NHRA Spring Nationals in Houston, thanks to extra preparations by the teams and new penalties put in place by the NHRA

"At this point of the 2004 season, we have had 35 oildowns compared to 45 last year and 44 in 2002," said NHRA Senior Vice President-Racing Operations Graham Light. "Time wise, we have been down for four hours and 51 minutes this year compared to six hours and 40 minutes in 2003, and six hours and 16 minutes in 2002. The average downtime per event this season is 58 minutes compared to one hour 20 minutes in 2003 and 1 hour 15 minutes in 2002. Another positive statistic is that the average oildown is just eight minutes this season."

Light attributed the improvements to many factors, including emphasizing the many downsides of oildowns in an owner/driver/crew chief meeting prior to the season-opening K&N Filters Winternationals in Pomona.

"We emphasized how the biggest obstacle we face when trying to attract new sponsors and/or new spectators is the oildown problem," said Light. "We stiffened the penalties due to the disturbing trend in 2002 and 2003 of an increase in the number of oildowns. The Tech Department also wrote some new rules to help reduce oildowns, such as requiring full belly pans on dragsters, dry sump oil systems on Funny Cars, and phasing out of cast blocks, and the teams have developed some improved devices to help resolve the issue, such as titanium oil pans."

Below is a list of drivers whose teams have been charged with oildowns this season.

2004 Combined Nitro Oildown Statistics – Listed by Number of Violations

Driver PC 1 PA GF LV 1 HT TOTALS

Tony Schumacher 0 0 0 2 1 3

Scott Palmer 1 2 0 3

Larry Dixon 0 2 0 1 0 3

Jerry Toliver 2 0 0 0 1 3

Tony Bartone 0 0 1 0 1 2

Stephen Neese 0 2 2

Ron Capps 1 0 1 0 0 2

Phil Burkart 1 1 0 0 0 2

Luigi Novelli 2 2

John Force 0 0 1 0 1 2

Bruce Litton 2 0 2

Whit Bazemore 0 0 0 1 0 1

Tony Pedregon 0 0 0 1 0 1

Scott Weis 0 0 0 0 1 1

Rhonda Hartman-Smith 0 0 1 0 0 1

Jack Wyatt 1 0 1

Don Sosenka 0 1 1

Dale Creasy Jr 1 1

Cory Lee 1 0 1

Bob Hallock 1 1

Venues listed by city name/state, i.e., PC1 = first Pomona, Calif., event
Blanks cells indicate that a driver did not attend this event

2004 News Archive
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