What struck some as odd with the NHRA and Don Schumacher Racing alignment with Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates was not the Middle East connection. It was the notion that Top Fuel rivals Tony Schumacher and Hot Rod Fuller would become teammates.
 
Neither driver, though, seems to be too exercised about it.
 
"The way my dad hires people, I thought I'd be teammates with everybody right now," Tony Schumacher said with the snappy delivery of a Conan O'Brien.
 

What struck some as odd with the NHRA and Don Schumacher Racing alignment with Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates was not the Middle East connection. It was the notion that Top Fuel rivals Tony Schumacher and Hot Rod Fuller would become teammates.
 
Neither driver, though, seems to be too exercised about it.
 
"The way my dad hires people, I thought I'd be teammates with everybody right now," Tony Schumacher said with the snappy delivery of a Conan O'Brien.
 
Besides, the seven-time Top Fuel champion struck a blow for the racing purist, noting that being part of the same organization doesn't make drivers teammates unless they share a sponsor.
 
"You know, I don't think it makes me teammates with Hot Rod or Tommy Johnson. I've got to win a race for the U.S. Army," Schumacher said.
 
"All the other guys on my team, we're teammates, but we're not out there bumping and shoving them to the front. So when it comes down to them, if I have to race against them, he’s just another guy in the car next to me that we have to battle against."
 
With that last use of the word "we," Schumacher was referring to crew chief Mike Green and his own U.S. Army team crew members. To him, that's his team.
 
Fuller, who said he thinks the public misunderstood the motive for his remarks in the past about Tony Schumacher, expressed nothing but respect for the Top Fuel dominator and DSR.
 
"Tony's a rival to everyone of us who drives Top Fuel," Fuller said. "The guy won the championship six years in a row and has beat us all. Everybody digs a little deeper when they're running against Tony Schumacher, and everybody wants to beat him. He's the best. I've nothing but respect for him. He's the best race driver in our sport, because time and time again he's risen under pressure. He steps us and that's what a champion is supposed to be.
 
"I'm a hungry little guy," Fuller said with a laugh, but added seriously, "I want to be the best and have what he's got. And I know he's got to respect that. The one thing with Tony is every time we raced each other, we got out of the car and shake each other's hand. That's what the fans want to see. They want to see two guys who really want to beat each other go after each other. That's what it's all about."
 
During testing at Palm Beach International Raceway at Jupiter, Fla., late last month, it sank in that "I was always the rival for those guys. Now here we all are, working together. It was a cool experience."
 
Fuller has studied the United Arab Emirates and its culture as he prepares to begin work for Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi. And he knows that one big difference between the drag racing scene here and there will be the absence of the in-your-face, stir-it-up smack-yakk that American TV thrives on.
 
"I think I'm a little brash and a little out-there," Fuller said. "I also know I need to bring it in, because their culture is very different over there. They're very laid-back and they're not controversial. The things that went on between me and Tony Schumacher would never exist over there. It's not how they operate."
 
He said some have wondered how he and Don Schumacher can work together after that flurry of trash-talking.
 
"The big question a lot of people have is: What's the relationship between me and Don Schumacher? Did that create tension? There was no tension," Fuller said. "Don Schumacher's been nothing but great to me. People, sometimes I think they misconceive what's going on.
 
He said he appreciates Don Schumacher's commitment to excellence. His first glimpse of that in this relationship came during testing at PBIR.
 
"Everything, from the trailer to the tools -- every part and piece was brand-new. Usually when you go test something goes wrong. We had minimal problems, just little things. That was probably one of the greats things was that everything worked fine," Fuller said.
 
And he said he's grateful to Schumacher for the chance to get back into the driver's seat. At PBIR, he made 12 passes in four days, almost more, he said, than he completed in four selected races last season as a part-time driver. Under the tutelage of team manager Lee Beard and his crew chief Rip Reynolds, alongside Johnson and crew chief Mike Domagala, with assistance from Cory McClenathan crew chiefs Todd Okuhara and Phil Shuler, and under the watchful eye of Don Schumacher, Fuller was a driver once again.
 
And Don Schumacher had answered his own question.
 
"At the end of (the '08) season when I lost my job, Don Schumacher was the first person to call me to offer assistance: 'Hey, Rod, how can I help?'
 
"People forget -- we're racers on the track but when it's all said and done, we're all friends. We're all for each other, because we're all drag racers. Don's one of those kind of people," Fuller said.
 
Moreover, Fuller said that "the other cool thing about this whole (Yas Marina Circuit) thing, is that with both these teams that were put together, everybody was unemployed, from race teams that were disbanded. So Don put over 20 people back to work in the drag-racing world."
 
Tony Schumacher said the Yas Marina project "was a great deal for my father. I don't know too much about it, because really they (the UAE and Yas Marina) own the car.

I think my dad's just basically assembling everything.
 
"That is what he's the best at. There is nobody out there that is as good at putting a team together and a group of people on short notice," Schumacher said, recalling the 1998 Exide Dragster deal. "We're good at getting it put together quick. He's sharp that way. He's a great businessman.
 
"This was a business deal for him," he said. "People came forward and asked him to help him put a program together, and he did it."
 
And Don Schumacher's "cast of characters," as he calls his drivers, just became even more intriguing.