Wed, 24 Nov 2004, 11:35 AM Hail To The Chief

By Bob Frey Photo copyright 2004 Auto Imagery, Inc. Or At Least the “Sarge"

Before I get onto this week’s column I wanted to remind everyone that the on-line items for the Darrell Russell auction are now up for bids. You can go to nhra.com and see the story and check out all of the items and then make your bid. There are some really nice items and, of course, all of the proceeds go right to Julie, Darrell’s wife. If you’re a drag racing fan, a NASCAR fan, or a sports fan in general there’s bound to be something for you, so check it out and bid if you want to, and as they say in the auction business, good luck. 

Schumacher lights up the sky.

About this time last year I was saying that Larry Dixon and his “Miller Lite” team had one of the best Top Fuel cars that I had seen in quite some time, and they did. Well, for one year, the “U.S. Army” car is about as good as any that I’ve seen and it will be interesting to see how Tony Schumacher and his group do next year. Winning an NHRA POWERade championship is one thing, repeating as champion is another story altogether. Did you know that in the entire history of NHRA, there have only been six drivers who won back-to-back Top Fuel championships?  Larry Dixon, Gary Scelzi, Scott Kalitta, Joe Amato, Don Garlits and Bennie Osborne are the only guys to win the TF title in consecutive years and that’s some pretty good company to be in, if you can get in that company. So good luck to Tony in 2005. Of course you know that Tony’s ten wins this year was a single season record and if you’re a regular reader of this column you probably know that his sixty round wins was one round shy of the single season mark for a year. Kenny Bernstein set the record in his 2001 championship season when he won sixty one rounds, but did you know that Kenny did it in twenty four races, and not twenty three like Tony did? 2001 was the year that NHRA celebrated its 50^th anniversary with a special race in Pomona in the summer and would you believe that at that extra race Kenny won exactly one round. What are the odds, huh?

The Schumacher's with championship check.

Tony’s domination this year was pretty thorough since he won the first race and the last race of the season and eight more in between, and all along he was only out of first place for two races. Did you know that the first time he wasn’t in the lead was after the Topeka race, the one that Brandon Bernstein won? Tony was in second place by one round after that race and he made that up when he went to the final round at the next race in Columbus. About the only time that you could say he went into a slump was at the two races after that, Englishtown and St. Louis. Did you know that those two races represented the only time all year where Tony failed to make it to at least the semi-final round at consecutive events. Now that’s amazing. His opening round loss to Rit Pustari in Englishtown was one of the big upsets of the year while his loss to Doug Herbert in St. Louis dropped him back into second place for the second and last time all season. After those little miscues Tony went on a rampage, making it to the final round at eight of the final eleven races of the season. Like I said, pretty impressive and pretty dominating in a Top fuel car. Over those eleven races Tony ran up an amazing 1,065 points to put the title out of reach.

Alan Johnson

One of the real keys to any team’s title chances is consistency and Tony certainly had that this year. Not only did he make it to the final round thirteen times, but more importantly, he only lost in the first round twice, once to Pustari and the other time to Scott Kalitta. That, in itself, may be the real reason why he won the championship this year. Consider this. Did you know that his closest competitors for the title, Doug Kalitta, Brandon Bernstein and Scott Kalitta lost a combined fourteen times in the opening round? Doug and Brandon each dropped five while Scott lost four times in round one. Do the math and you’ll see that that will slow your title chase down in a hurry. By the way, Larry Dixon was the best at never losing in round one in the Top fuel class and that’s why he won two titles. Did you know that in his championship year of 2003 Larry only lost once in the first round? And did you know that he once went thirty consecutive races without dropping an opening round match? Thirty, that’s the best in the history of Top Fuel and that’s one reason why that team was so tough to beat for two years. 

Tony’s consistency started with qualifying and ran right through the entire weekend. Although he wasn’t normally the top qualifier, he was always near the top. Did you know that he qualified in the top four spots at fifteen of the races this year and he was in the top half of the field at twenty one of the twenty three races in 2004? And the only two times that he didn’t make it into the top half he still went to the final round. He was the ninth qualifier at the first Las Vegas race and he won that race and he was tenth at Denver and he went to the final round there. The Las Vegas race is significant because, other than Tony, Larry Dixon was the only TF driver to win from the bottom half of the field all season long. So you see, it didn’t seem to matter where he qualified, Tony Schumacher could win from any place on the ladder and that’s the sign of a true champion and a really good team. One other factor that contributed to his great season is the fact that Tony beat all the cars that he was supposed to beat, and by that I mean that he very rarely was an upset victim. Case in point, other than that one round loss to Rit Pustari, Tony only lost one other time all year long to a team that finished out of the top ten. Once. He was a combined twenty three and two against teams that finished eleventh or worse this year and that’s a whole pile of points in the win column. A whole pile.

The U.S. Army top Fuel team.

Tony and his father, Don, will be the first to tell you that they can’t win anything by themselves and that this championship was truly a team effort. Throughout the season, crew chief Alan Johnson did everything right and everyone knew that he could make a lot of power, but then so could most of the top teams. Alan’s secret was the fact that he could tame the car down when he needed to and when that didn’t help, like in the final round at Pomona, Tony could save the run and the team with his driving. Of course Alan and Tony were helped by a very good crew, a crew that made very few mistakes all season long. Included in that group (in alphabetical order) is the fuel specialist Joe Arena of Galveston, Texas, a nine year veteran in the sport. Randy Cargo from Indianapolis handles the wheels and tires and provides general mechanical assistance. Kevin Eckstein of Tiro, Ohio, is the team’s bottom end specialist while Brian Husen of Grand Rapids, Michigan, is the shop supervisor and the on-the-road manager. Jason McCulloch, who has been around the sport all of his life, thanks to his dad Ed, is the assistant crew chief on the car, and Lanny Miglizzi is a consultant to the team who specializes in track conditions and clutch application. Also on the crew of the year are Nick Peters, the short block specialist, Tom Turkal, an eight year veteran and the cylinder head specialist and Rodger Whitworth, a native of Wichita Falls, Texas, who is the clutch specialist. Together, these guys and all of the other people behind the scenes for the U.S. Army car made this the 2004 NHRA POWERade championship team.

With rumors of several new cars coming out for 2005, the persistent rumors of a John Force Top Fuel car and a ride for Melanie Troxel, and with a new car from Houston, Texas that will have a famous sportsman racer driving, 2005 could be even more competitive than this past season. You could also see the union of two current teams and a major crew chief announcement in the next few days along with the return of one of the real veterans of the sport and all of that will serve to make the defense of his championship a very tough chore for the “Sarge,” Tony Schumacher. But fear not, Don, Tony, Alan Johnson and the rest of that team will look forward to the challenge and there’s nothing to make me believe that they won’t be the team to beat at the start of the ’05 season. Congratulations and good luck to the “U.S. Army” Top Fuel team…the 2004 POWERade champions.