NHRA championships on the line in this weekend's season-ending Auto Club Finals - MotorSportsTalk

After 23 races and nine months to the day of the final round of the season’s opening race in February, the 2017 NHRA season comes to a close with this weekend’s Auto Club NHRA Finals at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, California.

NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series championships are on the line for all four professional classes: Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle.

Some of the battles are extremely tight, while at least one category will be over by the potential champion merely qualifying for the race.

Let’s break down each class and where the championship battle lines are drawn, as well as who I am picking to become 2017 champions:

TOP FUEL:

Antron Brown’s championship reign in 2015 and 2016, as well as three times in the last five seasons, is over.

Three drivers remain in the hunt for the 2017 title, and no matter who it is, it’s guaranteed to be a first-time Top Fuel champion.

Steve Torrence comes into Pomona holding a 20-point lead over Brittany Force, daughter of 16-time NHRA Funny Car champ John Force.

“To win a championship, we can do this and do that, but at the end of the day we need to go there and try to win the race,” Torrence said. “We don’t want to go there and be conservative.

“We don’t want to treat it any different than any other race. You can definitely make a lot more of it and put a lot of pressure on yourself. But we want to go there and do what we’ve been doing. We want to run well in qualifying, go rounds, and try to win the race, and go there and enjoy it.

“I feel confident we are up to the occasion. It’s up to us to go and do the best we can. If everyone on our team goes out there and does their job, I feel confident that ultimately we should prevail. That’s been the case the whole season. When we go out and do our job, we come out on top. We just have to stay calm and stay focused.”

Torrence has to stay one step – and at least one round – ahead of Force to take the title. But if Torrence runs one round short of Force, she’ll likely be the champ.

For example, if Torrence – who has won 8 of this year’s first 23 races – loses in the second round of Sunday’s eliminations but Force reaches the semifinals, she’s in and he’s out.

Also, if Force out qualifies Torrence on Friday and Saturday, she will earn bonus points (or Torrence will if he out qualifies Force) that will give her a slight edge unless they both meet in the final round, when it’s a winner-take-all situation.

“I don’t try to focus on the big picture and how many points you need,” said Force, who has six career wins. “Obviously, I hear things and how many rounds out we are, but my main focus is one round at a time. That’s the way I approach it.

“Some drivers feed off how many points they are behind and how far they are back, but for me, I do it one round at a time. It’s too much pressure, too much on my plate if I look at it another way. Then my focus is lost, it’s not in the right place, it’s not in the car, it’s a distraction. For me, less distraction is better when I’m in the car.”

Doug Kalitta is also mathematically still in it, but at 85 points behind Torrence, he has his work cut out for him. But if Force and Torrence both falter in the first or second round, Kalitta could come from behind to become the season champ.

It’s a longshot, but it’s still doable.

My championship pick: Steve Torrence

* * * * * * * * *

FUNNY CAR:

Ron Capps is going for his second consecutive championship, but he’ll have to get past Robert Hight to do so.

Hight holds a 15-point edge over Capps, while Courtney Force is still mathematically eligible, albeit a distant 125 points back.

But if Hight and Capps exit in the first round of eliminations and Force wins the race, she could steal the championship.

And if Brittany Force wins in Top Fuel, how great would it be to have sisters being champions for the first time in NHRA history?

My championship pick: Capps.

* * * * * * * * * *

Pro Stock: Seeking his first championship since 2010, Greg Anderson has a 40-point lead over teammate Bo Butner and a 76-point edge over other teammate Jason Line.

While a win would help, Anderson can likely clinch the championship by just reaching the Pro Stock final round.

My championship pick: Anderson

* * * * * * * * *

The driver/rider with the easiest path to a championship is Pro Stock Motorcycle’s Eddie Krawiec.

Sure, L.E. Tonglet is mathematically still in contention heading into this weekend.

But – and that’s a big but – all Krawiec has to do is qualify for Sunday’s eliminations and he will have clinched the championship.

My championship pick: Krawiec

Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

NHRA championships on the line in this weekend’s season-ending Auto Club Finals

Hunter Lawrence defends Haiden Deegan after controversial block pass at Detroit

Read more about SuperMotocross