Top Fuel drag racer Cory McClenathan remains firm on one aspect of his drag racing career. The veteran driver of the Fram Top Fuel dragster has given himself until his 50th birthday to win a championship and then, win or lose, he plans to embark on a new life outside of the cockpit.
Currently McClenathan stands third in a three-way championship battle with Don Schumacher Racing teammate Tony Schumacher and Al-Anabi driver Larry Dixon. Newly announced DSR teammate Antron Brown is fourth.
At 68 points out of first, McClenathan’s chances are remote, but not impossible, with eight possible rounds of completion remaining. Last year he finished third in the championship points behind the same two drivers.
Top Fuel drag racer Cory McClenathan remains firm on one aspect of his drag racing career. The veteran driver of the Fram Top Fuel dragster has given
himself until his 50th birthday to win a championship and then, win or lose, he plans to embark on a new life outside of the cockpit.
Currently McClenathan stands third in a three-way championship battle with Don Schumacher Racing teammate Tony Schumacher and Al-Anabi driver Larry Dixon. Newly announced DSR teammate Antron Brown is fourth.
At 68 points out of first, McClenathan’s chances are remote, but not impossible, with eight possible rounds of completion remaining. Last year he finished third in the championship points behind the same two drivers.
If McClenathan can overtake Dixon for second, he’s got a chance for his best finish since 1998 when he won six races.
If not, he’s giving himself four more seasons to win the elusive title.
“I’ve thought about it for the past year or two, is I wanted to be out of the car by the time I’m 50,” McClenathan said. “I’m 46 now, that gives me four years to kinda gather things up and decide on what I wanna do. I still have the passion to drive. I love driving these things, but at the same time I’m thinking a couple more years in Top Fuel dragster.”
So what role does McClenathan see himself filling after driving a dragster has run its course?
“Maybe I can go to work for Don and help run some of the teams and work at the shop,” McClenathan suggests. “I’d love to end my career with Fram, behind the wheel for the next few years and be able to kinda step out and keep on going with DSR.”
McClenathan points out that he’d like to work with the new drivers.
“I can’t imagine what else I would do, other than …” McClenathan paused.
“I would really like to get my vet tech license,” McClenathan admitted. “That’s a two year deal. I feel like I could do that and still do the racing thing at the same time.”
Yes, you read correct, McClenathan wants to be a veterinarian technician and if he gets the license, he can go almost all the way to the top of the line like he did in drag racing.
“I’d be able to assist in all operations, do the day to day when it comes to doing physicals for everything from cats, dogs and all the way up to cattle and farm animals of all kinds,” McClenathan explained. “The biggest thing is it’s two years and a lot of time and it’s not cheap, by any means.”
The only passion that compares to McClenathan’s love for family and drag racing are animals. 
McClenathan’s doesn’t consider himself like Dr. Doolittle, the fictional movie character who could converse with animals as humans, but rather as someone whose compassion creates a natural draw.
“For whatever reason, no matter what kind of animals are around, they always seem to come to me for some reason,” McClenathan said. “My grandmother has one of those cats won’t go to anybody and hides in the room, and every time I go to the house she comes right out and comes right up and sits in my lap. So, my grandmother is just astounded by that.
“So it’s one of those things where I believe people all know what animals are like. Well, animals are very aware of what kind of people are good people and bad people, and for some reason animals kind of flock to me and I like that. I’m certainly not calling myself Dr. Doolittle by any means, but it’s kinda cool when you can relate to different animals.”
And the one thing about those animals is that they won’t change over the years like drag racing has done. McClenathan admits he’s almost like a stick and ball sports figure looking at the final years of his career and taking notice of how aspects of the sport aren’t the same.
“I think if you would have asked me about this [retirement] five years ago I wouldn’t have known exactly how to answer the question, but the more that I see this sport going to like the countdown scenario, and how things have changed,” McClenathan said. “We see that in stick and ball, we see it in NASCAR, and it’s just one of those things where all of a sudden I’m starting to look at well, what do you want to do in the future? It’s certainly not what do you want to do when you grow up, cause obviously I’m grown up. But at the same time I just find myself looking that direction of what am I going to do when I step out of the race car. I would have to keep busy because I know it’s going to be hard to walk away from driving.”
McClenathan believes he’s drag racing’s version of NFL football player John Elway in that he could always find a way to the championship but just couldn’t seal the deal. Eventually after 14 seasons in the NFL, Elway won back-to-back championships and then retired. Seventeen full seasons into his career, McClenathan has finished runner-up four times in his storied career.
So if he wins that championship will he retire early and get a head start on the vet career?
“I’d feel like John Elway,” McClenathan said. “I’d want to go one more year to see if I could do it again. If I could be a John Elway and win two championships in a row, yes, I would step out of the car.”
Advertisement
