Tony Schumacher’s NHRA career has been a case study in excellence.

The Sarge, as he’s known, has won seven Top Fuel world championships.

This season, however, Schumacher has not been performing up to his lofty standards with just one race win.

Make that two now – thanks to a holeshot Sunday at the second annual New England Nationals.

Schumacher clocked a 3.824-second run at 323.27 mph to defeat Doug Kalitta’s 3.813-second lap at 323.89 mph.

The difference was at the starting line. Schumacher had an .051 reaction time and Kalitta left at .071.

“It was stout and intense,” Schumacher said. “The fans pay good money to go to a drag race and they got the best show I’ve seen this year. It was just outstanding racing. According to the stats, if we get past second round, we’ve won every race. That’s how bad we have done at the rest of the races. You go up and down and right now we’re up and we’re up at the right time. We’re going to Chicago, my home race next (June 26-29) and we’re going to (Norwalk) Ohio, and then we’re going to hit the Western Swing.”

This was Schumacher’s 74th career win and his second in 2014, the other coming at Las Vegas on March 30. That also was the only time Schumacher made it past second round this season before Sunday.

“We’ve been working hard and I almost feel bad,” Schumacher said. “We have not been giving them the Army car they are used to seeing. We haven’t performed, but as a team we understand what we are going through, we know what we’re trying to do, we know the goal, and that’s to make this six-disc clutch work. It’s very difficult. You see, Alan Johnson, you see a lot of guys struggling, guys who are very, very smart.”

Schumacher believes using the six-disc clutch is the best move for his team in terms of the future.

“On the side of it, when we get it to work, and push through these hard times it’s going to be something we need to do.” Schumacher said. “It’s necessary and we are going to start winning with it. It’s always out there (trying different things) and you have to find a way to win the Countdown. Running old stuff is not going to work. We’re going to be ahead of it. That’s why we have been trying to force the issue. Rather than run the five-disc clutch and win races and test on Monday, we’ve really spent a lot of time forcing it (the six-disc clutch) through.”

Schumacher’s victory parade consisted of wins over Steve Torrence, Antron Brown, Clay Millican, and Kalitta.

“You can’t ask much more coming out to New England Dragway and I’m just as happy as could be. We’ve had some bad breaks and (Sunday) we had some good ones.”

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