The opening quad of Top Fuel dragsters had already completed their burnouts when they were signaled to shut off due to light precipitation. Drama ensued as the cars were preparing to re-fire when Tony Schumacher’s dragster backed out and returned to the pits in an attempt to replace a seized supercharger. Josh Hart, Billy Torrence, and Tony Stewart were initially told by officials to go to the back of the line with the option of making any necessary preparations in the pits to the apparent objection of respective crew chiefs David Grubnic; Richard Hogan and Bobby Lagana; and Mike Green.
“The situation is unfortunate with the rain,” said Green, crew chief of the RL Carriers dragster driven by Stewart, while waiting before they refired. “We are kind of programmed to refuel and fire back up. That was kind of the plan. I’m not sure what happened in Lane 4 over there, but they left.”
Though Schumacher’s American Constructions Communications team did not shut their car off until instructed to do so, the issue discovered after the cars were shut down became the topic for debate. Crew chief Jim Oberhofer was not going to refire the dragster without addressing the now-known issue, and his peers in the other three lanes wanted to continue when the track was ready if instructed to do so.
After several minutes of back-and-forth, NHRA’s Vice President of Racing Administration Josh Peterson communicated the call from Schumacher’s pit to let the cars refire.
Stewart and Torrence advanced with respective runs of 3.727 and 3.731. Hart trailed with a 3.753 while Lane 4 was vacant in Schumacher’s absence.
“It’s awesome,” said Bobby Lagana, co-crew chief on Torrence’s Capco Contractors dragster. “I feel bad for ‘Grubby.’ That’s a difficult situation. I’m the kind of guy who wants everyone to be happy, but these guys have to make a decision. You can’t do that to the fans. It’s pretty simple. Jesus, Christmas!
“Anyways, Billy did a spectacular job. I love Grubby, I love Mike Green, I love all these guys. It sucks that somebody had to lose that round. That was for the fans. God bless.”
Grubnic doesn’t place any blame on the situation for his team’s third-place finish.
“That is 100-percent on me,” said Grubnic. “The car must go down the racetrack. We’ve made a lot of one-hit-wonder runs where we’ve set low e.t. or top speed, but I always find myself envious of the race winner. I’m not happy with the race day setup yet, and we’ve been working hard on making it down the track in hot conditions. In these type of conditions, we weren’t pushing it as hard as we should have been.”
Regarding the decision of whether to refire the dragsters or go to the back of the light and give Schumacher the opportunity to return, Grubnic responded diplomatically.
“From our perspective, we were ready to run the car when the track was clear,” said Grubnic. “That’s what we communicated. Beyond that, it’s not up to me. We are at the mercy of the race director at that point. We were told to wait. Regardless, it had no bearing on our performance.”
Oberhofer was unavailable for comment in the team’s pit area following the run. Fellow Rick Ware Racing crew chiefs Nick Boninfante Jr. and Jon Oberhofer confirmed that the issue with the supercharger was not discovered until after the cars were shut off. A crewmember was turning the engine over with a ratchet when it locked up.
From the time the four dragsters first fired until the quad was complete, one hour and fifteen minutes elapsed.
