{"id":56611,"date":"2018-10-31T10:46:14","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T17:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=56611"},"modified":"2018-10-31T13:00:38","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T20:00:38","slug":"j-r-todd-hopes-to-stay-on-a-roll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/j-r-todd-hopes-to-stay-on-a-roll\/","title":{"rendered":"J.R Todd Hopes To Stay on a Roll"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"J.R<\/p>\n

NHRA\u2019s Funny Car Countdown to the Championship playoffs have been a true roller coaster. When the six-race combat began, John Force Racing\u2019s Courtney Force led the 10-car flopper field. Then her brother-in-law, reigning champ Robert Hight took over.<\/p>\n

After the fifth race, it\u2019s now Kalitta Motorsport\u2019s J.R. Todd atop the standings, thanks to his victory at Las Vegas and his overwhelming consistency throughout this six-race playoffs. Now owning five victories on the year and two runner-up slots, Todd and his \u201cYella Fellas\u201d hold a 74-point advantage on Hight, who has four victories during this 24-race season, while perennial championship candidate Ron Capps in third, with three wins in his Dodge Charger R\/T and 165 points back.<\/p>\n

\"J.R<\/p>\n

It\u2019s anyone\u2019s game among those three, although Tim Wilkerson (Ford Shelby Mustang) is only 21 points behind Capps and could take over third if the 2016 titleholder falters. Todd and Hight have split wins at two each in this five-race slog, with Capps taking victory at zMAX Dragway. As good as Hight\u2019s been, Todd\u2019s been equally effective going rounds, something Hight was unable to accomplish last weekend.<\/p>\n

As Hight came into the Las Vegas race, he was hounded by the DHL Toyota Camry, which slid into the race just six points behind his Chevrolet Camaro SS. Going out in the first round, he left the door open for Todd, Capps and Wilkerson, who fell to race runner-up Matt Hagan\u2019s Dodge Hellcat SRT in Round 1.<\/p>\n

J.R. Todd\u2019s been knocking on championship doors in both Funny Car and Top Fuel his entire career. A true racer, he\u2019s able to succeed in any sort of drag racing car and has the talents to make a mark in other forms of motorsports. (At the special race held shortly after the death of his best friend, Eric Medlen, a mini-sprint contest, Todd was the winner.)<\/p>\n

The Kalitta team Todd drives for has experience winning Funny Car championships. Co-crew chief Jon Oberhofer did the deal with Del Worsham in 2015 driving the DHL Camry. Todd Smith, co-crew chief was Jack Beckman\u2019s tuner when that driver won his Funny Car championship in 2012 at Don Schumacher Racing. These guys know how to win and are guiding Todd to that promised land.<\/p>\n

The DHL team appeared to get serious about winning this title at Indy, the final race of an 18-event \u201cregular season\u201d, when Oberhofer and Smith \u201cfelt like they needed to get aggressive with the tune-up.\u201d This aggression began at Brainerd, followed through with their win at Indy and hasn\u2019t let up. \u201cIt\u2019s really about being consistent,\u201d Todd said. \u201cWe\u2019re racing smart, not overthinking or overdoing things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"J.R<\/p>\n

The ebullient Todd would rather have that 74-point advantage as the tour heads to Auto Club Raceway at Pomona next weekend, where points-and-a-half are on offer . \u201cWe still have some unfinished business at Pomona. Hopefully we can go there and come out with two trophies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Todd\u2019s comfort in the car is certain. Even with a fuel issue that set the team back on Friday at Las Vegas, the entire Kalitta squad pitched in to get their title contender back on-track. As he preps for the season closer next weekend, Todd now owns seven Funny Car victories and nine national event wins in Top Fuel. His versatility is unquestioned; his dedication is common knowledge.<\/p>\n

Will J.R. Todd bring home a pair of trophies for team owner Connie Kalitta, backing up Worsham\u2019s accomplishment three years later? After winning both Las Vegas races, going to four finals in five Countdown races, \u201cWe just need to keep doing what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

For those still in Vegas for SEMA, this could be a fine bet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the fifth race, it\u2019s now Kalitta Motorsport\u2019s J.R. Todd atop the standings, thanks to his victory at Las Vegas and his overwhelming consistency throughout this six-race playoffs.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":56614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,3470,3399,22],"tags":[2,719,41,7,156],"class_list":["post-56611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-column","category-news","category-nhra","category-event-coverage","tag-drag-racing","tag-j-r-todd","tag-news","tag-nhra","tag-sema"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Todd-Q4-top-end-min-e1541007963845.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-eJ5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56611"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56629,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56611\/revisions\/56629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}