With an impressive team behind him, including savvy crew chief Jonnie Lindberg and renowned championship tuner John Medlen as a consultant, Paul Lee made significant strides in his NHRA Funny Car career this season. Yet, despite his progress, Lee’s championship hopes were cut short due to NHRA’s Countdown to the Championship format.
This weekend marks the start of the NHRA’s Countdown to the Championship for the 18th year, kicking off with the Pep Boys NHRA Nationals in Reading, Pennsylvania. Under the traditional points system, Lee would have ranked 11th, with a faint but possible chance to advance by the season’s end. However, after the Labor Day Toyota U.S. Nationals, Lee fell out of the top 10 standings, slipping to 14th due to the NHRA’s inclusion of racers who attended all 14 regular season events.
The NHRA rules reward perfect attendance, allowing Cruz Pedregon, Buddy Hull, and Dave Richards to leapfrog into championship eligibility—despite finishing outside the top 10—while Lee, who missed the New England Nationals in Epping, N.H., in late May, was left out of the playoff picture.
In a candid Facebook post on Monday, Lee expressed his frustration: “After NHRA reset the FC points, we go from 11th to 14th, with NO chance of finishing higher. So there is no use wasting parts and money this year, so we will sit out until the last couple of races for this year. Oh, and best of luck to this year’s FC ‘participation award’ winners,” he said, adding the hashtags “participationawardssuck,” “letusrace,” and “seeyounextyear.”
Lee’s season had been building momentum. He secured a career-first final-round appearance in Seattle, finishing runner-up to Austin Prock in July. At the U.S. Nationals, Lee also claimed the prestigious $80,000 prize in the Pep Boys All-Star Callout event, showing the strength of his McLeod Racing/FTI Performance Dodge Charger team. Lee called this year’s crew “the best team I’ve ever been a part of in the nitro category.”
However, the sting of missing the Countdown proved too much. Lee will sit out the upcoming races at Reading, Charlotte, St. Louis, and Dallas, focusing instead on the final two races of the season in Las Vegas and Pomona.
While the NHRA’s Countdown format has its advocates, Lee is among those voicing opposition to its “inclusion” rule. For now, his sights are set on next year, where he hopes to make a more sustained push for the championship without the roadblocks that derailed his 2024 campaign.
This story was originally published on September 12, 2024. 
