That's saying something because RTJ was pretty good year.
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According to Bob Sr, yes he does.
I do not vote but when I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how close it was between the 2, I did look at stats more than anything. Particularly in head to head racing. I found that Pierce won 7 while RTJ won 10 times when they raced head to head. So it was amazingly close. They both had quality wins and led their respective series in win totals for the year. The wins at Charlotte are what tipped the scales in the head to head wins and as I said in that Fast Talk piece its why I felt like RTJ had moved ahead. But I also said if there was ever a year that you might consider a tie this would be the one.
Pierce's wins documented in an above post.
RTJ's head to head wins (I only included a prelim feature if both were in it)
Lucas Oil Speedway 3/31 MLRA
Brownstown 4/19 Castrol
Florence 5/6 Lucas
Florence 5/31 Castrol
Eldora 6/8 Dream Prelim
Husets 7/20 Lucas SDN
Off Road 7/25 XR
Fairbury 7/29 WoO
Charlotte 11/3 WoO
Charlotte 11/4 WoO
I've always felt the level of competition in the LOLM series will put the better driver there over the best in WoO. The winds of change are blowing though.
Thanks to Dod, I've come up with these numbers.
RTJ vs Pierce head to head.(no heat races counted)
Flo/Castrol series - 9 races
Pierce 6
RTJ 3
XR mini series 5 races.
Pierce 3
RTJ. 2
WoO/Lucas combined 24 races
Pierce 15
RTJ. 9
38 times they met head to head in A mains (preliminary features counted).
The score - Pierce 24. RTJ 14.
Wins. Nothing else matters. This isn't a points title.
Sorry but 5th and 12th don't matter to me when I am deciding who had the better season.
They both had career seasons. RTJ wins no championships and Pierce nabs 3. That should have been the deciding factor.