The Blackhawk helicopter was circling over Baghdad.

 

And one of the U.S. Army’s finest pilots was on the cell phone in those dangerous skies, connected to his National Hot Rod Association pals in Pomona, Calif. He wanted to know the outcome of Top Fuel driver Tony Schumacher’s final-round run.

 

The championship was hanging in the balance. Doug Kalitta, who had led the standings for the entire second half of the season, had the Powerade Series title locked up – unless Schumacher could win the final round against Melanie Troxel with a national record-setting elapsed time.

 

In 4.428 seconds, Schumacher did it to clinch his fourth championship in the Army Dragster. The Run will live in legend. The miracles of modern technology will stay in Schumacher’s memory.

Schumacher, Force Inspire Remarks By Motorsports Elite

 

The Blackhawk helicopter was circling over Baghdad.

 

And one of the U.S. Army’s finest pilots was on the cell phone in those dangerous skies, connected to his National Hot Rod Association pals in Pomona, Calif. He wanted to know the outcome of Top Fuel driver Tony Schumacher’s final-round run.

 

The championship was hanging in the balance. Doug Kalitta, who had led the standings for the entire second half of the season, had the Powerade Series title locked up – unless Schumacher could win the final round against Melanie Troxel with a national record-setting elapsed time.

 

In 4.428 seconds, Schumacher did it to clinch his fourth championship in the Army Dragster. The Run will live in legend. The miracles of modern technology will stay in Schumacher’s memory.

 

He knew as he sat there, buckled in for the run of his life, that the pilot was on the line. "I thought," Schumacher said, "that he’s going to know the result before I did."

 

Schumacher shared that story Saturday night at the American Auto Racing Writers and Broadcasters Ass’n. All-America Team dinner as he received First Team honors and the prestigious Jerry Titus Memorial Trophy. He is only the fourth drag racer to receive the Titus award, joining four-time winner John Force (1996, 1999, 2000, 2002), Don Prudhomme (1976), and Shirley Muldowney (1982).

 

Funny Car icon Force -- drag racing’s other first-team selection -- had his own version of what motivated him to win his 14th championship as a driver and 15th as an owner.

 

"I didn’t have a Blackhawk helicopter," Force deadpanned. "But I had eight or nine creditors hanging around."

 

He said Ford Racing Technology Director Dan Davis whacked him on the helmet and told him as he sat in the staging lanes in his Castrol GTX Ford Mustang that day, "You will win this championship. Or I will fire you." Said Force, "That’s really how it goes down in drag racing. I embellish my stories but I always tell the truth. Well, not always."

 

Force, attending the dinner for the record 11th time, took the stage for his Horsepower trophy along with Schumacher, open-wheel stars Sam Hornish Jr. and Sebastien Bourdais, road racers Jorg Bergmeister, Rinaldo Capello, and teammates Scott Pruett and Luis Diaz, ARCA stock-car king Frank Kimmel, and Formula Ford 2000 champion J.R. Hildebrand.

 

But thanks to Schumacher and Force, drag racing took a significant turn in the spotlight all night.

 

Pruett injected some Schumacher-inspired humor into his speech. Pruett, of Chip Ganassi Racing, said, "Tony Schumacher talks about how he watches ‘Miracle’ before every race. I watch ‘Happy Gilmore.’ "

 

And rising star Hildebrand, who’s Champ Car Atlantic Series-bound, reminisced about the times his father took him to Sears Point (now Infineon) Raceway for drag races.

 

"I drew flags on paper of my favorite driver, and that was always John Force. I’d sit up there in the stands, waving my little flag. He’d never see me or anything," Hildebrand said. "But he always did the biggest, longest burnouts. Drag races are about the most exciting things I’ve ever seen. For that brute power, you can’t beat a drag race."

 

Hildebrand said he wanted as a youngster to get Force’s signature, but when he got near Force’s pit he decided that the Funny Car legend "totally scared me. I thought he was the scariest person alive." But the young Californian, who also won the Gorsline Scholarship toward his studies at MIT, worked up the nerve Saturday. He looked into the audience and said to Force, "If you don’t mind, I’d love to get your autograph."

 

Even keynote speaker Jack Roush -- a former drag racer himself before building his NASCAR Nextel Cup, Busch Series, and Craftsman Truck Series fleet and establishing Roush Industries – alternately razzed and commiserated with Force. He even said he sympathizes with the NHRA champ, who frequently and self-deprecatingly tells the public, "My wife loves me. She just don’t like me."

 

Said Roush to Force, "I’ve got the same problem you do. I lived with the same woman for 42 years and one day she decided I wasn’t worth the trouble. I’m surprised it took her that long."

 

Even Roush deferred to Force when it came to their entertainment ratio. "I shouldn’t tell a joke here tonight," Roush said at the Downtown Indianapolis Hyatt, "because throwing a joke in a room where you are would be like throwing a firecracker into a minefield. Sooner or later you’d get the last word and that would be the end of it."

 

But in speaking about his surprising but successful alliance with rival Robert Yates, Roush jabbed Force.

 

 The drag racer is father to four daughters (Ashley, who has created a buzz regarding her announcement to step up to a Funny Car this year, Force Racing CFO Adria, and budding Super Comp racers Brittany and Courtney). And Roush mentioned Yates’ son, adding, "Eat your heart out, John."

 

But Force and Schumacher could say, "Eat your heart out" to everyone else in the room. They know the thrill of winning a handful of championships. They know what it feels like to go more than 330 mph in less than five seconds. They sit in the eye of a spectacular sensory-overload storm that makes the ground quiver, hearts race, nostrils flare, lungs burn, eyes water, and ears ache.

 

And they know what it’s like to have their names engraved on a special trophy that, to borrow a phrase from Hornish, "celebrates which driver is the fastest and the bravest on the race track."