Don Schumacher has built a
high-profile, championship-winning, multi-car NHRA drag-racing team in a short
period of time.
A former Funny Car driver
who starred on the match-race and national-event circuits in the 1960s and
1970s, Schumacher returned to NHRA professional competition as a team owner in
1998. In his first full season as an owner, Schumacher and his son, driver Tony
Schumacher, captured the 1999 NHRA Top Fuel championship.
In 2001, Schumacher added
his first Funny Car team - Whit Bazemore in the Matco Tools Funny Car - and, in
2002, Scotty Cannon in the Oakley Funny Car. In 2003 four-time Top Fuel
champion Gary Scelzi came on board to drive the Mopar/Oakley Dodge Funny Car
and earned his and DSR's first Funny Car crown in 2005. DSR also campaigned a
second Top Fuel car driven by Melanie Troxel and sponsored by Torco Race Fuels
from the last half of 2005 through 2006.