Eight-time NHRA Top Fuel world champion Tony Schumacher picked up his second win of the 2024 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season on Sunday afternoon at the Midwest Nationals, giving him a much-needed boost in his hunt for a ninth series title. Aboard the Leatherwood Distillery/Waltrip Brewing Co. Top Fuel dragster, Schumacher, the winningest Top Fuel racer in NHRA history, powered past Steve Torrence in an exciting final round showdown to bring his total win count up to 88 national event victories. Thanks to his successful outing at World Wide Technology Raceway near St. Louis, Schumacher, who started the Countdown to the Championship ranked eighth, now occupies the No. 6 spot with three races remaining before the series champion is crowned.
After persistent rain showers kept teams from taking to the track on Friday, the Mike ‘Zippy’ Neff-led team started the weekend on Saturday by posting a run that placed them at the top of the timing sheets. Schumacher’s opening lap of 3.739 seconds at 325.22 mph held up to be the quickest of the round and added three bonus points to his overall total. The team made another statement-making pass in the second and final qualifying session, with Schumacher rocketing to a 3.718 E.T. at 325.22 mph to add two more bonus points to his tally.
Starting from the No. 2 seed for the fourth time this season, Schumacher drew Top Fuel newbie and reigning Top Alcohol Dragster champion Julie Nataas as his first-round opponent on Sunday. Schumacher scored the starting line advantage in what was billed as NHRA’s Top ‘marquee matchup,’ but lost traction as soon as he hit the throttle. The veteran racer masterfully let his 11,000-horsepower machine settle down before getting back on the throttle pedal and powered to victory while Nataas was struggling with traction issues of her own in the opposite lane. The quarterfinals featured a battle between the two winningest drivers in the Top Fuel category with Brown lining up next to Antron Brown. It was the 78th time the two went head-to-head on race day. Once again, Schumacher was first out of the gate and piloted his Leatherwood Distillery/Waltrip Brewing Co. machine straight down the groove and into the next round while Brown’s engine went silent approaching the finish line. In the semifinals, Schumacher snagged the holeshot start for the third consecutive round and clocked a 3.724 E.T. to defeat Shawn Reed’s 3.766-second attempt. The round win sent Schumacher, a winner in Bristol, Tennessee earlier this year, into the final round for the fourth time this season.
In the finals, Torrence moved first, but Schumacher charged to victory by clocking his best run of the day – a 3.718 E.T. at 329.42 mph – to lead Torrence by approximately five feet as he crossed the finish line stripe. The triumph was No. 11 for the JCM Racing team, which recently scored its 10th national event win when team owner Joe Maynard’s son, Joe C. Maynard, raced to victory last weekend in Charlotte in the Top Alcohol Dragster category.
“This win is fantastic and a major morale boost,” said Schumacher, now a three-time winner at World Wide Technology Raceway. “I’m covered in champagne, which is the best way to end a race day and I can’t wait to celebrate with some Leatherwood Snake Eater later. I haven’t looked at the points, I don’t know how far back we are. We hurt ourselves kind of early on but at the end of the day, it’s racing. We won the race, we did a great job, we gained some good points, and we’re closer than we were the moment we started this morning. Whether we win the championship or not, we did a heck of a job this weekend.
“Let’s face it, we didn’t have a great car for three years and we tried to find our problem,” Schumacher continued, speaking of the team’s struggles to find consistency since he rejoined the circuit full-time in 2022. “We found it in Brained, and I was vocal about that. We had problems we had found and addressed before, but the one that we discovered in Brainerd was the one that really mattered. Zippy is great at what he does. He can tune a car, but he’s especially good at the last-minute, five-seconds-before twists of the knob but we just couldn’t get it to go down the track. A couple of races ago, he said, ‘I got it,’ and he did. We’ve been getting better and quicker, and better and quicker, ever since.”
With the grueling three-race swing of Reading, Charlotte, and St. Louis races now behind them, the Leatherwood Distillery/Waltrip Brewing Co. team will head back to their racing headquarters in Brownsburg, Indiana to regroup and prepare for the next race on tour, the Texas NHRA FallNationals. Schumacher will look to extend his Texas Motorplex record of six wins at the Dallas-area facility as he continues with his mission of climbing the Top Fuel point standings.
“There’s three races to go, it’s not over yet. Is there time to win a championship this year? I don’t know. Is there time to win a few more races and do great and deliver for our sponsors? Definitely.”
Qualified: No. 2 (3.718 E.T. at 325.22 MPH)
Elimination Round Results:
E1: 4.359 E.T. at 303.09 MPH defeated Julie Nataas 5.050 E.T. at 191.16 MPH
E2: 3.746 E.T. at 322.34 MPH defeated Antron Brown 3.759 E.T. at 295.92 MPH
E3: 3.724 E.T. at 323.74 MPH defeated Shawn Reed 3.766 E.T. at 311.85 MPH
E4: 3.718 E.T. at 329.42 MPH defeated Steve Torrence 3.763 E.T. at 316.90 MPH
NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Top Fuel Point Standings (Unofficial):
| 1 | Antron Brown | 2344 | |
| 2 | Justin Ashley | 2310 | |
| 3 | Shawn Langdon | 2284 | |
| 4 | Doug Kalitta | 2257 | |
| 5 | Steve Torrence | 2256 | |
| 6 | Tony Schumacher | 2241 | |
| 7 | Clay Millican | 2211 | |
| 8 | Brittany Force | 2171 | |
| 9 | Tony Stewart | 2150 | |
| 10 | Billy Torrence | 2113 |
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