Tony Schumacher has proven he’s one of the greatest Top Fuel drivers in NHRA history.
He has 85 national event wins and eight world championships on his resume to state his case as the greatest.
Now, The Sarge, as he is known, is returning to race a full season in 2022 as the only car in carrying the Don Schumacher Racing banner. He will be sponsored by Scag Power Equipment, the philanthropic Maynard Family and Okuma.
The last time Schumacher ran a full NHRA season was in 2019 and he last competed at the season-ending race in Las Vegas in November of 2020.
“I wanted to be out there, but it was a messed up last couple of years,” Schumacher said in an interview with CompetitionPlus.com. “The whole world was goofy and, whatever. If you were going to pick a couple of years to miss, boy, did I nail it. I mean, seriously, you couldn’t have written it in a better script. Nobody wants to sit out, but I mean, look at Force’s whole team sat out, just cause. And then I came back and got to run a couple of races, and I won one in Houston (Oct. 25, 2020). So, the car ran well, and I was using backup back-up cars.”
Now the winningest Top Fuel driver in NHRA history gets a fresh start in 2022 with veteran crew chief Todd Okuhara, who has been with the DSR family since 2005.
“We’re excited to get back out there,” Schumacher said. “The whole team is. I’ve never worked with Todd Okuhara and his brother Scott. It’s a good group, man. These guys, in my opinion, have always been really good people and it’s going to be nice to work with them. Look, we won championships with Dan Olson, Alan Johnson, and Mike Green, right? And then me and Zippy (Mike Neff), we were getting close. I mean, we finished second in the first year and we were getting better and stronger every run. We just, we got cut short of our time together and we didn’t have a deal.
“So, I’m looking forward to it … It ain’t just about winning. It’s about a lot more, it’s about building a team and building friendships and building things that people have never seen. These guys have never gotten to work with me. I’ve never gotten to work with them. We’re going to go out there and enjoy ourselves, man. We’re going to really have a good, good time. This is just going to be an epic year.”
Schumacher also took notice of the fact there should be 16-car fields for 2022 NHRA national events, something that didn’t always happen the last couple of years.
“Last year you’d have races with 10 teams,” he said. “Now we’re going to have a huge amount of cars. I hated singles (bye runs). I would hate singles, man. I went my full career and won eight championships. I don’t know if I had two or three singles in my life. Last year you had two singles in a race.
“It’s just not … You appreciate the trophy and, yay! But the fact is the greatest wins are the most difficult ones. Everybody knows that. If you tell yourself anything different, you’re lying. Me and (Larry) Dixon always joke, we go, ‘Hey, look, any win’s a good win.’ Well, true. Look at my 85 wins. There were probably a couple in there that were less fun, right? But I don’t remember them because it’s just clumped in the middle of 85. So, you’ll take them all, I get what they’re saying, but there ain’t nothing like beating (Steve) Torrence in the final round by two ten thousandths of a second, or Kalitta. It’s just the way it is. It’s why we got into the sport, for the love of the game, not the paycheck. People need to remember that.”
Schumacher said his DSR team will roll off the trailer the first time at the PRO Nitro Spring Training, Feb. 10-12, at Wild Horse Motorsports Park in Phoenix.
“New parts, new pieces. Yeah. No doubt,” Schumacher said about the test session. I think we’ll even try to run Sunday (Feb. 13), so I don’t have a number. Just as much as we can. The guys who are working on the car, some of them haven’t done the particular jobs they’re doing, so we need it as much as I need it. Trust me. I’ve been out of the car for a year. (When you) get in those cars and start them up and you remember how fast they are. But you can sit, I mean, football players sit out a year with an injury. You get back, you don’t forget how to play the game.”
Schumacher said it is not that simple for Top Fuel drivers.
“You got to get used to the speed again,” Schumacher said. “It takes two or three runs. Not last year but the year before when I started the car the first time, I remember thinking, damn, these things are loud. I mean, it is what it is. They’re nasty, vicious, violent, unforgiving beasts. That’s just the name of the game. That’s what we asked for. But your body has kick a** memory. Now, I don’t know how many laps (Doug) Kalitta has made, but between me and him, we’ve made a lot of laps. You get in that car; you don’t forget what to do. It’s second nature. You do forget, however, when you go to do the warmup, you’re like, remind me again, but that’s it. Because every crew team is different.”
Competing at the season-opening Winternationals Feb. 17-20 in Pomona, Calif., is something Schumacher welcomes
“What I enjoy about it, as much as I love the fans, I enjoy it’s the beginning and the end,” Schumacher said of Pomona. “And both of them, I can’t say they bring equal pressure, but you can’t win every race in a season if you don’t win the first one. And without that last one, so many of my championships were dictated at that starting line. So, they’re both great. The mountains in the background. Beautiful.”
Although Schumacher has a plethora of new parts and pieces with his team, he has lofty goals.
“Win another world championship and build an epic team,” Schumacher said without hesitation. “Because there’s nobody showing up that doesn’t want to win the championship. But only one car every year does, right? And I have had some incredible moments with some incredible teams. The ultimate goal, win the championship. Not equal but really close, build a great team. There are a lot of great, great teams that finish second. (Ron) Capps (has) won two championships, right? And how many seconds? How many seconds does Kalitta have? There are teams out there that they’ve had great, great race teams. That No. 1 is a brutal thing to get (but) exciting.
“Ultimately, everyone talks about it, but we got to build the team. You got to build a race team. You start going in that direction and you get near the end, and you start going, OK, there’s a chance, there’s a possibility.”
The 2022 landscape of NHRA with just Tony Schumacher running the lone DSR car is something Tony is ready for.
“I think we were always the flagship (team with DSR),” Tony said. “I mean, I won eight championships. We got half the trophies on those shelves, or a third of them. We were always a good team and we all we’re there. So now Capps owns his own team and he’s pitted next to me, and he uses our hospitality. I think what happened and some leaving and some buying their own teams, all it did was move them around and say, Ok, the money shifts over here. And you pay Don (Schumacher) from there and buy his stuff and rent some stuff. And my dad, he’s 77.
“He’s been doing this his whole life, he’s been racing. And I think he wants to fish, man. He wants to go out and fish and come to the races when he wants to come to the races.”
The way Tony sees it, when he was in his prime at DSR it was about his team winning races and world championships not his teammates.
“I mean, people go, well, you guys were always teammates,” Tony said. “You had teammates. You had three teammates. Did I have teammates or did the people just write that I had teammates? I mean, me and Antron, we’re friends. Me and Leah, we’re buds, but we don’t share any parts. I mean, the parts and pieces were close. We don’t pay the same amount. We don’t run the cars the same. The crew chiefs barely talked. We never tried to run our cars as replicas. We had different names on our cars. Ours, I had Army, man. And we weren’t pulling for Antron to win the championship unless I couldn’t. And Antron wasn’t pulling from me unless he couldn’t.
So, ultimately nothing’s changed except where the money flows. Our shop’s still wide open. Our shop’s still producing 400 parts and pieces. Our shop’s still doing all the stuff that we do. Our shop’s still making the chassis.”
