Official starter Rick Stewart spotted some fluid leaking onto the right lane from Tony Schumacher's Army car, and he and Rick Shreck, assistant director of Top Fuel and Funny Car racing (Ray Alley's replacement), clearly ordered the team to shut off the car.
Schumacher's team ignored the order. Schumacher ran, and his plans went up in smoke immediately. He lost traction at the first hit of the throttle. So his 4.458 E.T. that had put him at the head of the list the previous two days had to serve as his best.

NHRA officials are reviewing the incident and a prepared statement indicated that they are considering punitive action against the team.

Official starter Rick Stewart spotted some fluid leaking onto the right lane from Tony Schumacher's Army car, and he and Rick Shreck, assistant director of Top Fuel and Funny Car racing (Ray Alley's replacement), clearly ordered the team to shut off the car.

Schumacher's team ignored the order. Schumacher ran, and his plans went up in smoke immediately. He lost traction at the first hit of the throttle. So his 4.458 E.T. that had put him at the head of the list the previous two days had to serve as his best.

NHRA officials are reviewing the incident and a prepared statement indicated that they are considering punitive action against the team.

Schumacher said he saw the shut-off order from starter Rick Stewart. Crew chief Alan Johnson said he didn't. But Schumacher said he's the driver, not the boss, and that he listens solely to his crew chief.

That's their story and they're sticking to it.

"I don't want anyone to think I didn't see him," the U.S. Army Dragster driver said afterward. "I clearly saw him. It's not my job as a driver to shut the car off. "

Said Johnson, "Don't misunderstand. I don't think there was a person on the crew who didn't think that it was going to smoke the tires. It wasn't an issue of 'Is it going to make it?' No. Everyone knew it was going to smoke the tires."

He said he went ahead and staged the car because "there are a lot of things we learn just from him hitting the throttle in the first two-tenths of second, whether we smoke the tires. That, coupled with the build-up to this whole thing. You've got these two cars going up there. The fans came to see that. The ones who were left there, that's the reason they were there, just to watch that. If we were to shut one of the cars off and have the other guy make a single, it would have been so anticlimactic. There was no safety factor involved."

"Alan Johnson is the safest, and I'll trust him with my life," Schumacher said. "That is it."

Johnson said he simply didn't see the shutoff gesture. "Had I seen Rick Stewart tell me to shut it off, I would have shut it off," Johnson said. "Rick Shreck was right next to me, and he never gave me the signal. He may have given it to Tony, but he never gave it to me."

Schumacher said a driver always takes his final orders from his crew chief. "They understand the car better.

They built the car. It's their responsibility. It was cloudy, dark, cool -- we were going to go fast. It was unfortunate."

Johnson said no one from NHRA had spoken with him regarding its deliberation about the situation and possible punishment. That raised the question of whether the sanctioning body would rule on a situation without hearing "testimony" from the involved party. NHRA spokesman Anthony Vestal said the organization would not make a final determination Saturday night.