When you’re the all-time Top Fuel winner and a seven-time series champion, chances are you’re going to bring out the best in your competition. But, for Tony Schumacher, driver of the U.S. Army Top Fuel dragster, the level of the challenge might be close to bordering on unreasonable.

Schumacher scored his fourth career NHRA Gatornationals title by stopping teammate Antron Brown.

“I go out in the first event of the season – [lose in a] tie race [with Larry Dixon] – then we go into the second race and [Steve Torrence] runs his quickest ever,” Schumacher explained. “If you look back into the books our team is responsible for all of maybe the lesser budget teams running their best ET’s.

“[Today] Terry McMillen runs a 3.86 [in the second round]. We do not stage our car and think it is an easy run. These guys are good. When they come up and the car isn’t going down the track, they try things. They turn things here and there and it sticks when you have a great race track like this. Unfortunately you get some good side-by-sides.”

When you’re the all-time Top Fuel winner and a seven-time series champion, chances are you’re going to bring out the best in your competition. But, for Tony Schumacher, driver of the U.S. Army Top Fuel dragster, the level of the challenge might be close to bordering on unreasonable.

Schumacher scored his fourth career NHRA Gatornationals title by stopping teammate Antron Brown.

“I go out in the first event of the season – [lose in a] tie race [with Larry Dixon] – then we go into the second race and [Steve Torrence] runs his quickest ever,” Schumacher explained. “If you look back into the books our team is responsible for all of maybe the lesser budget teams running their best ET’s.

“[Today] Terry McMillen runs a 3.86 [in the second round]. We do not stage our car and think it is an easy run. These guys are good. When they come up and the car isn’t going down the track, they try things. They turn things here and there and it sticks when you have a great race track like this. Unfortunately you get some good side-by-sides.”

Schumacher drove his way to the final round for the 96th time in his career by stopping Terry McMillen, Doug Foley and rival Larry Dixon. The two races between Schumacher and Dixon, this season, have been determined by a total of .003 of a second difference in elapsed time.

“That’s insane when you consider one was a dead tie,” admitted Schumacher.

Only three times in the history of Top Fuel racing have two drivers recorded identical elapsed times and speeds. Schumacher was involved in two of those historic races.

“Are you kidding me?” asked Schumacher, not enamored with his place in drag racing history. “There’s a lot of cars out here, pick on someone else.”

However, Schumacher understands those are the moments when everyone is a winner and there are no losers, even if you don’t take the win light.

“I’ve been very blessed to be a part of it,” Schumacher said. “You can’t win them all. But to be part of a race like that … that’s what it’s all about. That’s what we show for. Those huge moments like that when you have two great drivers, two great teams and two great sponsors … you get in your car and battle. At the end of the day, if you get the trophy – great. If not, you know that guy earned it. It’s an awesome battle.”

In Gainesville, Schumacher never emerged as a clear cut favorite but when it came crunch time, he pulled out just enough to win. Consistency was a key factor in Schumacher’s efforts as well as getting off of the line quicker. He credits a significant portion of the Gainesville success to improvements the team made to their overall combination between Phoenix and this race.

“Mike told me, ‘We haven’t been outrun all year. Not one time. I got beat on two good, close races,” Schumacher explained. “We worked extremely hard on changing the fuel system. Changing the blower and a little bit of the clutch to get our lights back.”

Three races into the season, Schumacher admitted his reaction times had been a cause for concern.

“My lights have been bad the first two races and we worked on it hard,” he explained. “We needed that confidence. I needed that confidence. It was perfect and exactly what we needed to do at the exact right time.”

Every time Schumacher lined up alongside an opponent in Gainesville, he left the starting line first. Preseason testing at Palm Beach International Raceway enabled crew chief Mike Green and the crew to know what adjustments to make. The Gainesville atmospheric conditions bore a striking resemblance to those in Palm Beach in January.

“We used a lot of the information and the conditions were similar. They couldn’t have been much different … maybe just a bit cooler,” he said. “It was great. That’s why we come to certain places and test. We gathered up an excellent amount of information at West Palm. I think it was the right place to test. It was effective for us to make run after run and adjust to the changing conditions. We did what we needed to do.”

All weekend the three Don Schumacher Racing Top Fuel dragsters were close in performance; a credit to their ability to share information between the U.S. Army team and input along the way from the Fram and Matco Tools teams.

“The guys work well together,” Schumacher said. “What started out as our tune-up, got put into Cory’s car and they did a heck of a job and I’m sure we gained something from those guys. Then we gained a bit from Antron’s car.

“It would be easy to be vengeful if you were just giving to them. But that’s not the case. We race and the closest races are going to be me and my teammates. We’re going to race and it’s going to be a battle. At the end of the year, if I can’t hold that trophy, I hope to God one of those guys will.”