For a brief moment, the Top Fuel contingent thought they had a chance.

Then final eliminations began.

Schumacher bettered his previous consecutive round win mark of 21 by three rounds to 24 by defeating Doug Kalitta in the final round. Schumacher had tied the record with a first round win over Bob Vandergriff, Jr.

For a brief moment, the Top Fuel contingent thought they had a chance.

Then final eliminations began.

Schumacher bettered his previous consecutive round win mark of 21 by three rounds to 24 by defeating Doug Kalitta in the final round. Schumacher had tied the record with a first round win over Bob Vandergriff, Jr.

“They had a chance every day,” Schumacher said. “We weren't a tenth of a second ahead of anybody.  It was just we were limiting our mistakes to zero and we're making it difficult.  We're making it difficult on those teams.  I've run against those guys before.  We had a time where we had to run against AJ, we had a time where Amato's car was going down the track over and over again, Larry Dixon had the same thing, and I understand how difficult it is to race against them.  But it's life, you get up and do your best.  And I think all we can do is lose it.  Like some of the guys were saying on the other team, they said “Well, they've got to make a mistake.” 

“We don't want to do that.  And now I have six races left with AJ, I definitely want to do it in those six.  I want to build every record I can right now.  If next year we can't find a crew chief, I'm doing that then.  I may never win another round of qualifying; I want to do it right now.”

Schumacher's father, Don, quickly put the kibosh of any thought Tony would tune his own car pointing out they would find the right man to replace the departing Johnson.

Tony Schumacher is clearly a man on a mission this season with eleven wins in thirteen final round appearances.

The impressive facet of Schumacher’s latest accolade, which ties him with Top Fuel legend Joe Amato, is that he pulled off the crown under the toughest of circumstances. Just two days earlier, highly regarded crew chief Alan Johnson announced his departure from the team to field his own operation with backing from Al-Anabi Motorsports.

“I woke up this morning and I feel blessed,” Schumacher said. “We had gotten in the show, we had struggled the first three days and we completely understand what AJ's kinda of figured out.  There's no doubt.  We've done that more often than not when we come to Indy, struggle at the beginning, distractions that come around, it's a little rough at the beginning.  And through the adversity you get news of crew chiefs leaving, you get news that he's starting his own team and you have to stay focused.  I'll tell you what, that team is very good at doing that, under pretty intense conditions, being able to pull it together and get the job done.

Lost in the shuffle of his seventh Indy win and 24th consecutive round win was the accolade of tying Amato’s all-time Top Fuel wins mark.

“When you do it the same day as you won Indy, you're trying to figure out which reason you're smiling for, just so many things happened today,” Schumacher said. “I don't think it's all set in yet.  We've won six in a row, eleven in the season, tied Joe Amato, won seven times in Indy, and just won Indy.  How about that?  You know, you kind of lose track.  You just won Indy, a huge race with great race cars and very tough conditions, very hot out, very hard to get down the race track; and you pull it off, against great teams.  So an awful lot of great things have happened, today was special.  It's going to go down on the trophy shelf as one of the greatest days ever.”