We’ll get to the details, but for right now digest the biggest story out of Indy:  Tony Schumacher has tied the legendary “Big Daddy” Don Garlits for the most U.S. Nationals Top Fuel victories at eight.  This is an important achievement, something to be taken seriously, and considered thoughtfully.  Winning Indy is the dream of every drag racer, and once victory is achieved it separates one from the pack.  It’s something no driver ever forgets.

 

We’ll get to the details, but for right now digest the biggest story out of Indy:  Tony Schumacher has tied the legendary “Big Daddy” Don Garlits for the most U.S. Nationals Top Fuel victories at eight.  This is an important achievement, something to be taken seriously, and considered thoughtfully.  Winning Indy is the dream of every drag racer, and once victory is achieved it separates one from the pack.  It’s something no driver ever forgets.  We know racers who have personalized license plates on their cars referencing their Indy wins, and others with e-mail addresses including wording like Nationalswinner@snotmail.com and WonatORP06@slomail.net. Winning this race is a very big deal, and now Schumacher has done it eight times!

We’ve written before that Alan Johnson owns Indy (Well, he owns a lot of tracks, doesn’t he?), but Schumacher’s victory came through the diligent efforts of tuner Mike Green – no stranger to the Indy winners circle himself.  But consider this:  This was Schumacher’s eighth straight time in the Indy finale – and he’s been to a total of 10.  This is heady stuff.  It’s the kind of thing that might be looked back on in 10 or 20 years if Tony continues to race.  It’ll be the foundation for things like consideration for the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame.  Trust us on this – this was big.

Mike Green must have been extremely confident about his tune-up, because in the first round, when many try a somewhat conservative approach, he had Schumacher rip off Low E.T. of the Meet with a 3.816 defeat of T.J. Zizzo, whose car wouldn’t shift into reverse after his burnout and had to idle down the track, handing the Army a free ride.

You don’t need to read about every single round.  All you need to know is that waiting for Schumacher in the finale was another solid Indy veteran, Larry Dixon.  Driving for Alan Johnson, and with car owner Sheik Kahlid in attendance (sportily attired in a purple shirt and shorts), Dixon was one of the few drivers who was enthusiastic about the race from the moment the gates opened.  Many others seemed distracted or concerned about other matters, like sponsorships, or how they’d approach the Countdown.  Not Dixon.  He was focused, with his eyes firmly on the prize.  But, after his car spun the tires in the same spot on the track that it had once before, he was philosophical in defeat, resigned to his fate yet determined to hit the next six races with everything he’s got.  His 4.208 was no match for Schumacher’s 3.861.

 

 

---

 

 

a d v e r t i s e m e n t

Click to visit our sponsor's website

---

 

There were some unhappy fans – and unhappy racers – after Funny Car was over.  There were multiple goals for some at Indy.  Take your pick on priorities, but one was making sure you made it into the Countdown, and the other was winning the race.  The math was brutally simple for Robert Hight – he had to go two rounds further than Cruz Pedregon to make it.  The action began in the second round, when John Force trounced Pedregon as the latter smoked the tires.  Beginning with the next pair the muttering and questioning

began.  Robert Hight faced Countdown qualifier Bob Tasca in the first of two must-win races.  He did so with a competitive 4.184/302.75 as Tasca, who ran his own 4.18 in the first round, suddenly slowed to a 4.213 at only 277 mph.  And it’s not as if the fans haven’t seen the Tasca Ford signage on Force’s cars for years. 

Long before the semifinals hit the starting line CompetitionPlus.com reporters, working in the pits on both sides of the track, overhead spectators willing to wager almost anything that Hight would defeat his father-in-law in the first semi.  They made the right pick.  Hight struggled with a 4.261, but Force suddenly got over against the wall and slowed to a 5.819.  There was some booing heard from the east side grandstands after that one.

The other semi was a beaut, with Ashley Force Hood downing former Force protégé Tony Pedregon, 4.145 to 4.198.  Even better was the action that took place at the turnoff, where Pedregon began shouting at John Force about having lost on purpose against Hight. Force declined to turn the other cheek, and responded in kind. Officials didn’t exactly have to separate the two, but it was close.

Let’s act and think like adults for a moment.  This is a business, and as much as we might like to see every race being an all-out, knock-down, I’d-run-him-over-to-win situation, circumstances sometimes dictate otherwise.  We are not for a moment suggesting that JFR did anything wrong, because we have no proof.  But candidly, Force would have been nuts to race straight up against Hight, because defeating him would have been to ignore the big picture, and the Countdown and Full Throttle championship is the big picture.  As a team owner you know you would have done it, I would have done it, and so, too, would have every other team owner in the pits.  Pedregon may have been bitter about his brother being knocked out of the Countdown, but moments later Force was still saying, “I love the guy.  He didn’t need to do that in front of everybody.”

Oh!  The finale.  Almost forgot about that!  Ashley won, and said it best when she said, “I was worried about Robert catching on fire, but I was on fire myself.”  She won her first U.S. Nationals in 4.170 seconds, as Hight’s car stumbled to a 4.217.  Now, if you were a real cynic you might think that John told Robert that since he’d previously won Indy, and had now made the Countdown, it was time for him to let Ashley win her first Big One.  Don’t even think it.

There’s a suicide watch on at Mike Edwards’ place. Oh, what that guy must be going through.  We reported on it yesterday.  The guy’s Pontiac was thumpin’ on all eight cylinders.  Just as he stoned everyone in qualifying, so did he in the first two rounds of eliminations.  He ran a 6.617 in the first stanza, with the closest car to him being Jeg Coughlin, Jr.’s 6.652.  In the second round Edwards clocked a 6.647.  The closest number to his was Jason Line’s 6.671.  But it all came to grief in the semis when Edwards bulbed against Jeg Coughlin.  The question now becomes, can Edwards get himself together enough to score well in the six remaining races, because he’s got the numbers of a champion but the luck of a feather in a hurricane.

Coughlin would go on to win the race, stopping Greg Stanfield in a great final round. Their Reaction Times were only 0.001 second apart, and their ETs were almost as close, Coughlin’s being a 6.689, and Stanfield’s a 6.691.  Good racing. G-o-o-o-d racing!

This was Indy, again something very, very special.  There is no other race like it, nor is there ever likely to be one.  It’s the kind of race that produces life-long memories, the kind of race that anyone who calls himself a drag racing fan must attend, at least once.  But the thing is, that’s darn near impossible.  If you come to one U.S. Nationals, you’ll be coming back year after year.  I oughta know.  My first Indy was 1967 – and I haven’t missed one since!

 

 

 

{loadposition feedback}