It has been 19 years since Top Fuel ace Joe Amato became the first driver to master the NHRA's so-called Western Swing of three tracks -- at Denver, Seattle, and Sonoma, Calif. -- in successive weekends. The task features wildly different atmospheric conditions and puts the burden on the tuners -- and hauler drivers.
 
The order of the summertime grind has varied throughout the years, and this year, for the first time, it starts in Seattle. But it doesn't seem to matter. No one has swept the Western Swing more than once.
 
"That is such a difficult thing to do, to do it once," Top Fuel champion Tony Schumacher said.

It has been 19 years since Top Fuel ace Joe Amato became the first driver to master the NHRA's so-called Western Swing of three tracks -- at Denver, Seattle, and Sonoma, Calif. -- in successive weekends. The task features wildly different atmospheric conditions and puts the burden on the tuners -- and hauler drivers.
 
The order of the summertime grind has varied throughout the years, and this year, for the first time, it starts in Seattle. But it doesn't seem to matter. No one has swept the Western Swing more than once.
 
"That is such a difficult thing to do, to do it once," Top Fuel champion Tony Schumacher said.
 
So it's no surprise that Schumacher, who accomplished the feat in 2008, possibly being the first to do so twice wasn't on his radar screen.
 
"Haven't even thought of that. It would be incredible," he said.
 
But he mused about being one to pull off the impossible.
 
"When we had to win in 2006, we had to set a world record on the last run of the year and win the race. Easy task, right? Well, we did it," Schumacher said. "It was the most amazing run ever. Then the next year, we said, 'How are you going to match that?' Well, it comes down to we have to win the last run of the year again. Same kind of thing. You pull it off once. Is it possible to have a team great enough to do this again?"
 
For him, sweeping the Western Swing would be significant, because he would be doing it with a completely different crew.
 
"To be able to go out there and me doing it would be even more gratifying, because I have a whole new team," Schumacher said. "The team I did it with all is Larry Dixon's crew right now. I wouldn't be doing it with the same group, with the same people.
 
"We were also written off last year and went out and won a championship. So I do not doubt my guys in any way, shape or form," he said. "They would be extremely gratified, because these guys, it would be their first time. Yes, I did it. But for them it would be the first time they get to go out and sweep."
 
Dixon earned his sweep in 2003 in the Miller Lite Dragster out of Don Prudhomme's stable. But his chances this year are excellent, too, for he leads the Top Fuel standings (and No. 2 Schumacher by 176 points) and has momentum from his seventh victory of the season in the previous race, at Norwalk, Ohio.
 
If Dixon gets off to a winning start in pursuit of another sweep (or makes it to the money round), he'll break from his tie with Joe Amato and could share with Schumacher the lead on the NHRA's all-time final-round appearance list. Schumacher heads into the Seattle event with 100; Dixon and Amato are at 99. Dixon He is second to Schumacher on the all-time Top Fuel winners list with 55 victories; Schumacher has 65.
 
"We had a great weekend in Norwalk," Dixon, driver of the Al-Anabi Dragster said. "On paper, it might have looked smooth, but the amount of work the guys put in after Bristol to being a better race horse in Norwalk really paid off. They made it look smooth, and they did a great job again.
 
"For our team, the four-race stretch went great," he said, referring to the bigger stretch that began June 3 at Joliet, Ill. "We've been going rounds and defending our position in the regular-season point standings. Six races in seven weeks are grueling, but I won't speak of grueling on me personally.
 
"The drivers have it made in a long stretch like this when compared to the crew guys. They don't get enough credit for how hard they work and how focused they are. And if you go rounds, you have more work to do," Dixon said. "Our Al-Anabi guys won 13 of a possible 16 rounds in the last four races, so they've been hittin' it pretty hard, but they’re ready for more. The Western Swing is more of a challenge for the teams and crew chiefs than the drivers. It has a lot of different track conditions and elevations. Add to that it's a lot of miles, and they still have to arrive every Wednesday to set up. It's tough.
 
Although he knows that "all of the teams try to go into Seattle and win, because whoever wins that race is the only guy that can sweep the swing," he was thinking beyond the trip West. "The big thing for our team," Dixon said, "is that we really want to go into the playoffs as the No. 1 seed. The 30 extra points that you get over No. 2 would have come in handy last year."
 
Cory McClenathan swept the 1997 Western Swing in Joe Gibbs' McDonald's Dragster. Now the FRAM Dragster driver, who's third in points with two victories in four final rounds in 2010, he said he's jazzed that the loop begins at Pacific Raceways, just south of Seattle, this time.
 
"I'm excited about that," McClenathan said. "It's a little bit easier to get cracking when you're in the first race of the three-week stretch that used to be the last one. My daughter, Courtney, will be there with me. The weather should be good, and we have a good car. All of those are confidence boosters."
 
Like Dixon and Schumacher, McClenathan already has clinched a spot in the Countdown to One playoffs that are the final six races of the season.
 
But he said he's trying to gain ground on Dixon and Schumacher while fending off some eager and talented contenders, including Antron Brown, who swept the Western Swing last season in the Matco Tools Dragster.
 
"Nobody is ever happy with No. 2 or 3," McClenathan said. "Obviously Larry has a great car, my Don Schumacher Racing teammate Tony has a very good car, and they have both won races this year. We also have to look at Antron Brown and Brandon Bernstein. Those guys are right there. Those four were all at least once in the finals in the last few races. We know they're all going to have good cars and be right there in the mix. And you can never count out Doug Kalitta.
 
"Yeah, I'd like to throw down some more wins before we get into the Countdown and move up in the standings," he said, "but when it really comes down to it, I would save it all for the Countdown."
 
The lone Pro Stock driver to sweep the Western Swing is Greg Anderson, and he did it in 2004 with the Summit Racing Equipment, starting his new sponsorship agreement in style.
 
He also could become the first to lasso three Wally trophies out West. The most shocked person if he did that would be him, he indicated.
 
"Like Tony said, it would be huge. Especially for me this year -- I haven't got a run going like I had back in 2004. I haven't been able to be strong at every type of race out there, every type of race condition, every type of atmosphere," Anderson said. "For me to be able to do that this year, it would be a bit of a surprise, to be honest with you, because we haven't been swinging at a hundred-percent clip this year.
 
"So it's going to take just a tremendous effort from us," he said. "For us to pull that off this year would be a major feat and would be a heck of a turnaround for a season that's been a little lackluster.
 
"I think it would mean more to me in the long run, because we're not expected to do it this year. It would be one heck of an effort for our team. I'm not sitting here saying we can't do it, because definitely we can," Anderson said. "The odds are a little bit against me this year, and they were not against me back in 2004."
 
But he found the bright spot: "The good news is, we do seem to be finally now hitting our stride and gaining every week on our performance level and have a chance to go win races again. Back in 2004, we were almost expected to win every time we showed up at the racetrack. Mike Edwards is expected to win every time he shows up at the racetrack."
 
The Swing this year is part of a seven-races-in-eight-weeks string. But Schumacher and Anderson don’t regard it as tough. They said they love it.
 
"I hate weekends off. I love racing cars," Schumacher said. "I think it shows in your performance. It shows in your attitude. I just love racing. Every now and then we need a break. I've been very lucky that I've been able to take my family with me to a couple ones at least at the beginning. It won't make the seven weeks seem long at all.
 
"I love being at the track," the U.S. Amry Dragster driver said. "If I could race a race car every day . . . People ask me, if you won the lottery, what would you do? I'd buy another race car and drive them both."
 
A grind? No, he said. "It is a grind if you are losing," Schumacher said. "I could imagine if you had to go seven weeks and lose first round every time, that would be extremely tough and hard to deal with. You'd have to pull yourself together. That's also when a great leader leads a team.
 
"We have an awesome car right now. We're battling head-to-head with Dixon. He's beaten me the last three. I owe him a few. I'm looking forward to getting up Sunday morning and kicking butt," Schumacher said. "At the end we're going to have a month off. I'm not going to know what to do with myself."
 
Anderson also said he's eager to strap in the car.
 
"I agree with Tony on that. I want to race every weekend. I want to race every day," he said. "That's what we are. That's what we do. We're racers. We love to race."
 
Schumacher mentioned struggling, and that struck a familiar chord with Anderson.
 
"Tony mentioned that it might be a struggle if your team is struggling, (that) you might not look forward to going back for seven weeks in a row when you're sort of behind the eight-ball. You know what," Anderson said, "you can always say we got next weekend. If we lose today, we can come back next week and try again. You don't want to wait three weeks if you're out there struggling. You want to bounce back as soon as you can, try to find a way to get back on track. We love to race every weekend.
 
"Quite honestly, it's not a job to us," he said. "We love what we do. We don't consider it a job. We want to do it every day of our life. The more times we can strap into that car, the happier we are.
 
"I'm not going to sit in here and whine," Anderson, who lives in Mooresville, N.C., considered the heart of NASCAR country. "NASCAR guys don't get a break all year long. We can't sit back and cry. We don't probably have the resources and the manpower they have, but still we get about twice as many breaks as they get. We're not going to whine at all. Absolutely as a driver, as Tony said, we want to get in that car as many times as we can, as often as we can. Not a problem at all. We look forward to challenges like that."
 
If any one of the Western Swing winners has a major challenge, it might be Funny Car's John Force. Sixteen years ago, in 1994, the Castrol GTX driver became the first and only Funny Car driver to record the sweep.
 
With four victories this year -- matching his total for the three previous seasons -- Force is once again crunching numbers. The leader needs to leave Pacific Raceways Sunday night at least 414 points ahead of Jeff Arend to clinch a spot in the Countdown. No one from the Funny Car class has done so yet. (Arend trails Force by 419 points and is No. 11 in the standings, one spot out of Countdown contention.)
 
Although Force has won the Northwest Nationals seven times, he hasn't done so since 2004. Is this Force's year to win out West three times again?
 
Dan Fletcher is the only sportsman-level racer to sweep the Swing, and he did that in 1994 in the Super Stock class.