Schumacher in hunt for sixth straight NHRA drag racing title
When asked to name the most dominant athletes this decade, who comes to mind? Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, Michael Phelps?
What about Tony Schumacher of Long Grove?
"The Sarge" has won five straight NHRA Top Fuel championships, and this weekend at the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series Countdown to 1 in Pomona, Calif., he's looking to make it six straight and seventh overall.
Schumacher, 39, holds a 1-point lead over rival Larry Dixon for the title, and in the first round of Top Fuel qualifying Thursday, they were just a thousandth of a second apart.
At the end of Thursday's qualifying for the season-ending Auto Club NHRA Finals, Schumacher had a 3.832-second run at 316.52 mph to Dixon's 3.833 at 314.31.
This year, the Schumacher-Dixon rivalry intensified when Schumacher's crew chief Alan Johnson and six members left to join Dixon at Al-Anabi Racing.
In a conference call with reporters covering the NHRA in Pomona, Schumacher said this final weekend couldn't have been scripted better.
"He gets my crew with five years of championship experience, and we're only separated by 1 point," said Schumacher. "The NHRA couldn't have asked for anything more."
The pressure is nothing new to Schumacher, who needed to win the final race at Pomona in 2006 to set the record to win the championship. Which, of course, he did.
"The car has always performed under pressure," he said. "It looks forward to pressure."
The Long Grove native couldn't have asked for the championship to be determined any other way.
"I look forward to waking up everyday and creating the outcome," he said. "At the end of the day, holding the trophy is not the most important. It's what it takes to get there that is."
Not only is Dixon 1 point behind Schumacher, but Mount Prospect-based Don Schumacher Racing (run by another racing legend, Schumacher's father) has teammate Cory McClenathan just 48 points back in third, and Tony Schumacher knows firsthand that the distance can easily be made up.
"We won two championships being back that far," he said. "Everyone has great cars, not just the top three."
The standings entering the final weekend heading into Sunday's finals have Schumacher at 2,485, with Dixon at 2,484 and McClenathan at 2,437.
If Schumacher fails to win the title, he hopes McClenathan will take it, but this championship weekend is a little different from years past. Schumacher is sponsored by Army, and Veterans Day was Wednesday.
"To be able to present them with the trophy would be incredible," he said.
Thursday at Pomona Schumacher increased his lead to 2 points by leading the first day of qualifying. Schumacher, with 61 career wins in Top Fuel racing, is looking to take his second pole of the season and 58th of his career.