Yes, Tony Schumacher won again.

Yes, he won the first round for the 24th consecutive time.

No, he didn’t clinch the championship.

Huh?

Schumacher won Don Schumacher Racing’s 121st national event at the NHRA Virginia Nationals in Richmond by stopping Hillary Will, the second place runner who trails by 212 points.

Technically that’s still not enough to seal the deal. Fourteen wins in seventeen final rounds and the deal still wasn’t sealed. Yes, Tony Schumacher won again.

Yes, he won the first round for the 24th consecutive time.

No, he didn’t clinch the championship.

Huh?

Schumacher won Don Schumacher Racing’s 121st national event at the NHRA Virginia Nationals in Richmond by stopping Hillary Will, the second place runner who trails by 212 points.

Technically that’s still not enough to seal the deal. Fourteen wins in seventeen final rounds and the deal still wasn’t sealed.

“There’s pressure, if I would have lost to Antron in the second round than we would have been only five rounds out,” Schumacher said, when asked if he’s still under pressure or relaxed. “That’s just not enough for the last two races. We’ve proven that we can come back from that much and we didn’t want to be on the other end of that. We’ve gone too far this season to set a record for losing the largest points lead.”

If his competition thinks he’s relaxing any, they’re greatly mistaken. He’s focused but the level of urgency isn’t producing as much stress as the last two seasons where he claimed championships on the last run of each respective season.

“It is easier,” Schumacher said. “It’s easy to get vulnerable and relaxed and get beat like we did in Dallas. We want to finish out with A.J. on a winning note, it would not be good to lead like we have and lose in the end. I want to close the deal and leave nothing on the table.”

Schumacher hasn’t exactly been the example of success at Virginia Motorsports Park and for the record this weekend’s triumph marked his first victory at the facility.

The successful driver is convinced this victory was made possible in qualifying.

“The third run in qualifying when we went up there and smoked the tires might have been the key to this whole race,” Schumacher said. “From that we learned that when the car is not backed up straight we can get ourselves in trouble. We learned a large lesson from that.”

When the car left the line it snapped the wheels to the right and when he had to steer to the left, the end result was smoke billowing off of the tires. Schumacher knows if the groove is narrow, the car has to be completely straight.

“That might have won the race for us,” Schumacher continued. “You might have gotten ourselves in trouble if we didn’t catch onto that early. Even in the final round I felt like we left a little on the table.”