EDITOR'S NOTE - For the next year, CompetitionPlus.com will celebrate its journey to 25 years of reporting drag racing news you can trust. The Road to 25 Series will present a story from each year that impacted the drag racing world. Today's installment focuses on the start of one of the most decorated championship runs. The year an improbable champion, Tony Schumacher, emerged as the driver to beat.

 

 

Tony Schumacher hesitantly admits it. If there was ever a time that being naive was in one's favor, it was as big of an asset as he could hope for in 1999.

Schumacher, then 30 years old and a relative babyface among the chiseled countenances of Top Fuel, didn't realize he was a championship contender until he clinched the title. Neve rmind the fact he'd amassed four final-round appearances in the two years leading up to the 1999 season.

The Top Fuel championship was reserved for drivers like third-year nitro racer Gary Scelzi, Joe Amato, and Kenny Bernstein. Schumacher certainly wasn't in that elite company yet. His best finish in the Winston Championship Points Standings had been 15th, and in his first full season (1997), Schumacher could only muster a 19th-place finish.

Until 1999, the most improbable Top Fuel championship had been recorded 20 years earlier when Rob Bruins won the title, having not won a single national event that season.

"There's been some great storylines, but that year being unknown, unheard of," Schumacher, now the winningest driver in the class at 86 victories, said. "Shoot, I didn't know myself. We were just new, and I couldn't believe that we were in that position, but I think my complete naiveness helped. There was no pressure. I wasn't supposed to win it. I didn't feel any pressure whatsoever. It was just go out and race and screw it up for everyone else is what we were doing."

The improbable became the probable when Schumacher beat the late Scott Kalitta in his ninth career national event final to win the O'Reilly NHRA FallNationals at the Texas Motorplex, outside of Dallas.

"It was just cool, just one of those years where we showed up, and there were ten cars that could win the thing," Schumacher said. "We're talking big name guys and then me, big name guys and me, and ten cars they said could leave Indy with the points lead; that's how close it was."

Then improbable became probable when Schumacher took the points lead headed into Dallas.

"We ended up with the points lead, having not won a race yet," Schumacher said. "I think we were averaging two-and-a-half round wins [per race]. And it was cool, man, to get down there and have a chance. I think when we talk now about how great the competition is. That year, if you were to go over the names that could leave with a points lead in Indy, you would find some of the biggest names in motorsports history on that list, and then there was me.

Schumacher, who has won eight Top Fuel championships, ranks the 1999 title as his best, even beyond the first title without Alan Johnson as his crew chief.

 

 

 

 

" After winning 15 races in a season in '08, and then being told basically, you have a good shot at finishing number two when he left, that's really what we were told. You'll win some races and finish number two is really how it was worded," Schumacher admitted. "To go out there and beat them by a couple of points and then do it again later in life, those are special, but the first one being wet behind the ears, I don't know if I knew how to drive a race car at all. It was just no pressure. Dan Olson, a whole team that came from Eddie Hill at the time, and a bunch of guys that were just having a really good time, and it worked out awesome.

"When they called me the champ, I was like, "What? Not Scelzi or Bernstein or [Doug] Herbert or what?" And God, what a blessing."

Truth be known, Schumacher said finishing second would have been as good as a championship in those days.

" I didn't think I belonged in the top five," Schumacher said. "Seriously, the guys were better than me as a driver as a whole. But whatever it was, it was the right timing, right place, and serendipitous. It was meant to be. For whatever reason, it was a great path, and it led to some amazing things. But that truly was the least pressure I ever felt in my life. Although we had a new sponsor with Exide, and it was really cool. We were new, and we were expected to just go out and maybe win a race sometime along the way. Nobody with our one trailer and our Prevost bus would've thought down the road it would look like this."

Schumacher has watched the movie Back to the Future more times than he can remember and knows exactly what he would say to the younger version of himself if time travel became a reality.

"Don't change a thing," Schumacher said. "Stay naive. Let it be fun, and don't let it rule your life. It's part of who you are, not only who you are."

And becoming the most improbable NHRA Top Fuel champion has a nice ring for Schumacher.

 

1999 Drag Racing Highlights

* Tony Schumacher becomes the first driver to exceed 330 miles per hour. His 330.23 miles per hour run came at the second event of the season in Phoenix, AZ.

* Pro Modified icon Scotty Cannon makes his Nitro Funny Car debut at 1999 NHRA Winternationals

* Shannon Jenkins becomes only the fourth IHRA Pro Modified champion in series history, joining Tim McAmis, Scotty Cannon (6-times), and Tommy Mauney.

* Factory X racer Chris Holbrook wins the IHRA Mountain Motor Pro Stock championship.

* NHRA announces 1.1 Million Dollar purse increase and a new track in Las Vegas.

* John Force wins the inaugural Winston No Bull Showdown in Bristol, Tenn., beating the Top Fuel drivers.