Drag Illustrated Issue 127, November 2017 | Page 62

30 UNDER 30 “THE COUNTDOWN IS GOING TO BITE YOU IN THE BUTT AND IT’S GOING TO HELP YOU SOMETIMES. YOU JUST HAVE TO BE MEDIOCRE THROUGH THE MIDDLE OF THE YEAR AND SAVE ALL THE GOOD STUFF FOR THE END.” never lost in the first round, ultimately posting a Countdown round record of 21-2. Tonglet secured the world championship in the second round at the Auto Club Finals in Pomona. For his efforts, he was also honored with the Auto Club Road to the Future Award, presented to the NHRA professional series’ rookie of the year at the cham- pionship awards banquet in Hollywood. Flash ahead to 2017 when Tonglet wasted no time in reaching the winner’s circle. Three races into the season, he had already picked up two Wallys after back-to-back wins at the Four-Wide Nationals in Charlotte and the Southern Nation- als in Atlanta. A second-round loss at the Sum- mernationals in Englishtown, New Jersey, was bookended by another set of consecutive victories at the Summit Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio, and the Route 66 Nationals near Chicago. Anoth- er second-round loss followed in Denver, but a win in the Mickey Thompson Pro Bike Battle, a $7,500-to-win all-star race, and Tonglet’s fifth and final win during the regular season – won by a margin of .0002 over past world champion Matt Smith – in Sonoma had Tonglet looking champi- onship-battle-ready heading into the Countdown. “It’s a big benefit to win the battle the day before which builds your confidence going into Sunday,” Tonglet said at the time. “I could hear him (Smith) the whole way and knew it was close. I wanted to look over very badly, but I just stayed tucked in and just stared at the win light and it lit which was exciting.” The early half of Tonglet’s Countdown saw him earn a runner-up finish at the Dodge Nationals in Reading, Penn- sylvania, and claim a win at St. Louis, but a first-round exit at the Fall Nationals in Dal- las dashed any hopes Tonglet had for becoming a two-time NHRA world champion this season. “Our mindset never really changed throughout the whole entire year,” Tonglet says. “Our plan was to go to each race, qualify the best that we can and go rounds. We were going to try to win every race. We accomplished a good part of that in the middle of the season. We just struggled in the Count- down for a little while. Dallas was really where the Countdown ended for us, at least in my eyes.” The NHRA Countdown to the Championship format, implemented at the onset of the 2007 season, was a point of contention among multiple drivers, teams and fans at various points in its brief history, but especially this season when the format drastically changed the potential champi- onship outcomes. Even though the Countdown cost Tonglet one position in the final points stand- ings, he accepts the format. Flawed as it may be in some respects, the Countdown is what ultimately allowed Tonglet and numerous other late-season studs to don the traditional championship leather jacket at the end of a season. “The Countdown is good and bad,” Tonglet readily acknowledges. “It does take away from everybody who’s really done good throughout the whole year, and it can give somebody that was mediocre through the middle of the year a fighting chance. Without the Countdown, I wouldn’t have won the first championship in 2010. “Fast-forward to this year, we did very good in the beginning of the year and we had a few bad races in the Countdown and we ended up third. That’s just racing with the Countdown points system. It’s going to bite you in the butt and it’s going to help you sometimes. You just have to be mediocre through the middle of the year and save all the good stuff for the end.” Furthermore, Tonglet completely accepts that the cards wouldn’t have fallen his way even if the playoff format wasn’t in place. With four victories in five final rounds in the Countdown alone, 2017 Pro Stock Motorcycle world champion Eddie Krawiec was simply unbeatable. “Even without the Countdown, we would’ve came in second. Eddie won seven races – he should’ve won eight, but everybody knows what happens there. He just had a very good bike all year.” It’s a mature, sportsmanlike outlook from the young rider, who, despite his age, brings years of experience and lessons learned to the table. His calm demeanor comes naturally, but it was also helped along by the peaks of winning two AHDRA national titles and an NHRA world champion- ship before reaching the legal drinking age, but also the valleys associated with operating as a low-budget team fighting to get every opportunity to make it to the next round and the next race. “I’ve learned a lot since I started racing,” Tonglet says. “We ran great in 2010, then ‘11 through really ‘15, we kind of struggled with our setup. I knew that we could run good, you’ve just got to stay focused and try to make the best clean passes that you can. And you can’t be scared to race. You’ve got to go up and hit the tree every time. You can’t worry about red-lighting, because the second you start thinking about red-lighting is the time you’re gonna go red.” Finally, with just a hint of despair in his voice, Tonglet, understandably exhausted after a hard- fought battle for a second world championship, offers up the ultimate lesson he learned as a young motorcycle drag racing star. “The biggest thing I learned,” he says, “is to just ride the wave as long as you can because it will come crashing down.” DI DI DI DI DI DI DI DI DI DI 62 | D r a g I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com Issue 127