Top Fuel driver Tony Schumacher spent part of Wednesday morning sitting in a race car, talking to drivers and touring the garage area.

But the smell of nitromethane wasn’t in the air. Instead, there was the smell of high-octane Sunoco racing gasoline as Schumacher wandered around the NASCAR Sprint Cup garage during testing at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Schumacher spoke with team owner/driver Tony Stewart and even crawled in Stewart’s No. 14 Chevrolet.

“Those machines are pretty awesome,” Schumacher said. “I told Tony, ‘I’m lighter. I could go around that track, too.’ The only problem I have is the ADD. I get around the second turn, and I start looking at the squirrels and stuff.”

Top Fuel driver Tony Schumacher spent part of Wednesday morning sitting in a race car, talking to drivers and touring the garage area.

But the smell of nitromethane wasn’t in the air. Instead, there was the smell of high-octane Sunoco racing gasoline as Schumacher wandered around the NASCAR Sprint Cup garage during testing at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Schumacher spoke with team owner/driver Tony Stewart and even crawled in Stewart’s No. 14 Chevrolet.

“Those machines are pretty awesome,” Schumacher said. “I told Tony, ‘I’m lighter. I could go around that track, too.’ The only problem I have is the ADD. I get around the second turn, and I start looking at the squirrels and stuff.”

Schumacher later talked with Ryan Newman and Jeff Gordon, but NASCAR wasn’t all that was on his mind. He even spoke with Gordon about lane choice when it comes to racing four cars in the Inaugural NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at nearby zMax Dragway.

NHRA is staying with their traditional four rounds of qualifying, with each car getting one pass on each of zMax’s four lanes. Schumacher, though, wishes it were more.

“Qualifying, I wish we had 10 of them (runs) because this is something new,” Schumacher said. “As much as I say it’s fun, we do get points here, so you want to go out and win this thing. It is very important that we don’t see any rain, that we get those four runs – I wish they’d give us five or six.”

Schumacher does have five teammates at Don Schumacher Racing among Top Fuel and Funny Car to gather information about each lane, but qualifying is only one of the many unknowns in this weekend’s event.

Two drivers in two of the first three elimination rounds advance to the second round, which means a driver can “win” even if didn’t get the win light. Schumacher hopes NHRA can figure out a way to let drivers quickly know if they’ve advanced in those first two rounds.

“We didn’t think about this,” Schumacher said. “I called Jerry Archambeault from NHRA the other day and said, ‘OK, I just thought of something. This is so cool and unique that I don’t know if anyone’s come up with this. When I cross the finish line, there ought to be a big, huge, lit-up thing that says, 1, 2, 3 or 4 in my lane.’

“We’re going to get out and kind of look at each other … did I? … I don’t … how? … nice job. We need to know what we did so we know if we’re moving on or not.”

Schumacher said that with two cars, an official points one car one way and the other another way, letting drivers know who won.

“Now, there’s four cars,” Schumacher said. “We can’t all even get around the corner.”

Another issue is visibility going down the track. In regular races, if the other driver smokes the tires, a driver can see it and coast to the finish. Now, with three other cars, a driver can’t see all the lanes.

“Now that I can’t see two lanes over, I’ve got to get back in it,” Schumacher said. “I don’t have a choice.”

Everyone will be learning this weekend, including NHRA, Schumacher said. But he also understands it’s a work in progress and will simply do the best he can.

For instance he didn’t know until last week that the finals will include four cars.

“To me, I didn’t need to know,” Schumacher said. “I’m going to show up, they’re going to tell me what lane to go in, I go to watch the lights, and when the lights go on, I’m going to push the pedal down. I’ve always been the keep it simple, stupid guy. The more I try to figure out and understand, the worse you do because you get overcomplicated.”

Whatever the procedure, Schumacher has a singular focus – hoisting the Wally high over his head at the end of the day on Sunday.