Getting ready for the thrills and excitement of Advance Auto Parts Monster Jam’s greatest weekend, here’s a look back at some statistics and facts from the previous 11 trips to Las Vegas’ Sam Boyd Stadium as we get ready for Advance Auto Parts Monster Jam XII presented by NGK Spark Plugs. 

For starters let’s examine just how critical “Double Down” Friday is when the 24 competitors in the race bracket qualify for their positions in Saturday’s tournament to determine the 2011 World Racing Champion. Here’s a list of the Double Down award winners, signifying the fastest qualifier at each of the first 11 World Finals: 

Year        Fast Qualifier                                                      Time                       Result  

2000       Tom Meents/Goldberg                                     17.84                     Won World Championship 

2001       Brian Barthel/Wolverine                                  16.12                     Lost in Semis (to Lyle Hancock/B.T.) 

2002       Tom Meents/Team Meents                             14.45                     Won World Championship 

2003       Jim Creten/Bounty Hunter                               16.98                     Lost in Finals (to Barthel/Wolverine) 

2004       Tom Meents/Maximum Destruction                16.12                     Lost in Semis (to Pablo/Black Smith) 

2005       Jim Creten/Bounty Hunter                               16.58                     Lost in Semis (to Dennis/Grave Digger) 

2006       Dennis Anderson/ Grave Digger                      16.19                     Won World Championship 

2007       Jim Creten/Bounty Hunter                               15.84                     Lost in round 2 (to Neil/Hot Wheels) 

2008       Tom Meents/Maximum Destruction                16.13                     Won 3 rounds, DNS Championship Race 

2009       Frank Krmel/Donkey Kong                               16.50                     Lost in round 2 (to Madusa) 

2010       Marc McDonald/El Toro Loco                           16.00                     Lost in Semis (to Dennis/Grave Digger) 

Looking at those results, here are some things that stand out. On 3 occasions the fast qualifier has won the World Racing Championship and 3 other times the fast qualifier has lost in semifinals. Only 2 of the fast qualifiers have lost their first race in round two after getting that 1^st round bye, something that never happened until the field expanded to 24 trucks and began seeding the top 8 qualifiers automatically into round 2 with first round byes. It is worth noting however that the Double Down award winner and number one seed in the bracket has lost that opening race in round two twice in the last four years. So winning the Double Down on Friday doesn’t necessarily lead to great success in racing on Saturday. The last time the fastest qualifier on Friday at Sam Boyd Stadium carried that success into Saturday to win the World Racing Championship was Dennis Anderson and Grave Digger in 2006. The last time Meents was number one in the time trials was 2008 and no one beat him on the track that year but he did not win the World Championship that time because Maximum Destruction would not start for the final race after he had earned his way into the World Championship Race with a trio of impressive wins earlier in that event. For the record, only Meents and Jimmy Creten in Bounty Hunter have topped the qualifying chart in more than one year: 

ALL TIME DOUBLE DOWN WINNERS AS FASTEST QUALIFIER  

Tom Meents  4 

Jim Creten  3 

Dennis Anderson, Frank Krmel, Marc McDonald, and Brian Barthel  1 

So while winning the Double Down doesn’t necessarily lead to a world title, past history says that you have to qualify well on Friday to get the champion’s trophy in racing Saturday. This next breakdown makes it clear that a good run on Friday is a must on the path to the World Racing Championship: 

WHERE THE WORLD RACING CHAMPION QUALIFIED EACH YEAR 

Year        World Racing Champion                              Qualified  

2000       Tom Meents/Goldberg                                 1^st 

2001       Tom Meents/Goldberg                                 2^nd 

2002       Tom Meents/Team Meents                          1^st 

2003       Brian Barthel/Wolverine                               6^th 

2004       Dennis Anderson/Grave Digger                    2^nd 

2005       Madusa/Madusa                                           2^nd 

2006       Dennis Anderson/Grave Digger                    1^st 

2007       John Seasock/Batman                                   8^th 

2008       John Seasock/Batman                                   3^rd 

2009       Tom Meents/Maximum Destruction             5^th 

2010       Dennis Anderson/Grave Digger                    5^th 

To sum it up, 3 times the World Racing Champion was the fastest qualifier; in another 3 years the World Racing Champion was the 2^nd fastest qualifier; 2 times, the past two years actually in 2009 & 2010, the World Racing Championship was won by the 5^th fastest qualifier; the World Racing Champion qualified 3^rd once, 6^thonce, and 8^th one time. The worst qualifying results for the eventual World Racing Champion was in 2007 when John Seasock and Batman qualified 8^th during that year’s Friday night Double Down festivities. No one has ever won the World Racing Championship qualifying worse than 8^th, which means that since the field expanded to 24 trucks in 2006, no World Champion has raced in the 1^st round; all of them have been seeded directly into the second round by qualifying in the top eight on Friday.        

Now let’s move the focus to the track record in the actual racing competition over the first 11 years of these annual battles for the sport’s gold. Here’s a recap of the round by round racing won-loss records of the 24 drivers who will race for the 2011 version of Advance Auto Parts Monster Jam’s World Racing Championship: 

ADVANCE AUTO PARTS MONSTER JAM WORLD FINALS PRESENTED BY NGK SPARK PLUGS 

ALL TIME RACING RECORDS IN WORLD FINALS # 1 through #11  

DRIVERS WON-LOSS RACING RECORDS (thru World Finals XI, 2010) 

1. Tom Meents                    27 – 6 
2. Dennis Anderson             22 – 7 
3. Jim Creten                       18 – 10 
4. Pablo Huffaker                14 – 8 
5. Madusa                            9 – 6 
6. Marc McDonald               7 – 5  
7. Alex Blackwell                 6 – 3 
8. Linsey Weenk                  6 – 5 
9. George Balhan                5 – 6 

Charlie Pauken                   5 – 6 

Adam Anderson                  4 – 4 

Chris Bergeron                    4 – 4 

Damon Bradshaw                4 – 4 

Chad Tingler                        3 – 4 

Jim Koehler                         3 – 11 

Jon Zimmer                         1 – 1 

Frank Krmel                         1 – 3  

Cam McQueen                    1 – 3 

Steve Sims                           1 – 3 

Chad Fortune                       1 – 8 

Candice Jolly                       0 – 2 

Lee O’Donnell                     0 – 1 

Norman Miller                   1^st appearance 

Jeremy Slifko                     1^st appearance 

We know that this is the toughest, trickiest track of the year, and we know that it is the greatest field of talent and trucks that compete against each other every time the calendar comes around again, so it should be no surprise that when you look at those numbers that only 8 drivers have a winning record in racing at the sport’s grandest event, a percentage of above .500 in previous racing competition at Sam Boyd Stadium. Here’s the breakdown of the winningest drivers in World Finals history percentage wise: 

WINNING PERCENTAGE OF .500 OR BETTER 

1. Tom Meents                            .818 
2. Dennis Anderson                     .759 
3. Alex Blackwell                        .667 
4. Jim Creten                               .643 
5. Pablo Huffaker                        .636 
6. Madusa                                   .600 
7. Marc McDonald                      .583 
8. Linsey Weenk                         .545 
9. Adam Anderson                     .500 

Chris Bergeron                         .500 

Damon Bradshaw                    .500 

Jon Zimmer                              .500 

Finally let’s examine how the top competitors in this year’s WF field have fared during the 2011 winter season. During the first quarter of the year with so many events each weekend some drivers may compete in one stadium event versus a large line-up on a given weekend at the same time another driver may be in five smaller brackets in an arena event. That said Jimmy Creten in Bounty Hunter tops the wins list with a 45-18 won-loss record in round racing followed closely by Adam Anderson’s 42-11 mark. Percentage wise no one is close to Dennis Anderson who won 36 rounds of racing this season and has lost only twice, The Icon falling only to Frank Krmel and Advance Auto Parts Grinder in Atlanta and to Linsey Weenk and the Lucas Oil Crusader in El Paso. Weenk by the way has a 37-11 record this season, and to pick out a few more of the top contenders Damon Bradhsaw is 36-12 and Tom Meents 26-11.    

It’s hard to compare those records because the competition faced varies week to week, so this may be a little better look at the momentum factor, how successful the top racers have been week to week in 2011. If you look at the 2011 won-loss record against just the drivers who will be in the World Finals XII field then you’ll see another reason that I have Dennis Anderson such a prohibitive favorite to win this year’s World Racing Championship in this year’s odds: the Grave Digger creator has a record of 24 wins and only 2 losses heads-up against the other competitors he’ll have to beat in Las Vegas, extremely impressive indeed. Some of the other marks against just the other drivers in the World Finals field this year in rounds of racing look like this: Weenk 15-8, Creten 12-8, Adam Anderson 6-3, Bradsahaw 6-5, while Meents has been just 50-50 against this group in 2011 with 10 wins and 10 losses. 

Those are just some of the facts and figures worth looking at when you start to fill out your brackets to predict this year’s racing at Advance Auto Parts Monster Jam World Finals XII presented by NGK Spark Plugs. Now it’s time to add another round of scintillating wins, heart breaking losses, and another World Championship – the time is here to crown the 2011 World Champions!