St. Louis Pre-Race Report

NHRA Midwest Nationals Event 19 of 22 Countdown Event 3 of 6 World Wide Technology Raceway Madison, Ill. Sept. 30 – Oct. 2, 2022

TONY SCHUMACHER

Driver of the SCAG Power Equipment Top Fuel Dragster

Countdown to the Championship Ranking: 12th

St. Louis Event Highlights:

• Two-time event champion (2006, 2010)

• Three-time runner-up (1999, 2008, 2016)

• 2020 No. 1 qualifier

2020 St. Louis Recap:

Qualified No. 1; Semifinal finish (defeated Kebin Kinsley in E1, Leah Pruett in E2; defeated by Doug Kalitta in E3)

Note: Did Not Compete in 2021

Last Event (Charlotte II):

Qualified 11th; First round exit (defeated by Josh Hart in E1)

Career Statistics:

530 races; 86 event wins; 88 No. 1 qualifiers

2022 Statistics:

18 races; one win; one runner-up finish

Noteworthy:

• Schumacher and the Maynard Family Racing team announced a partnership expansion with SCAG Power Equipment during last weekend’s Charlotte event. Starting in 2023, SCAG will serve as the primary backer of Schumacher’s 11,000-horsepower machine through 2025

Fan Events:

Schumacher and the SCAG Power Equipment show car will visit Erb Turf Equipment Inc. (1501 Boul Ave., Belleville, Ill.) on Thursday from 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

The event is free and open to the public

Quotable:

On the team’s recent performance:

“A couple of things have hurt us this year. Having three qualifying runs rather than four has really put us behind the eight ball being down one run at each race. We’re making drastic changes in how we run the car. So, if we miss it Friday night, now we’re not qualified, so then we’re stuck playing catch up trying to get in the show on Saturday, and we’re stuck making a conservative to run to make sure we’re qualified. You can’t make it down only one out of three qualifying runs and expect to win on Sunday. We can see the light, though. It’s getting better, we’re getting there. In round one in Charlotte, we were on a good, good run, and then the blower came apart. Our numbers were better than (Hart’s). We were on track to run a .60. We haven’t run in the 3.60-range all year. And, I think this weekend in St. Louis, it’ll run that .60 we’ve been waiting for.

“The car’s performance is finally doing what we’re asking it to do. When you have a car that does that, you can fine-tune the run. We can get it to go faster, but we couldn’t get it to replicate, and that’s a nightmare. Every time we were making a change, the car would just do the same thing, it wouldn’t react. Now we’re making changes and it’s responding to what we’re doing, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Even if it’s bad, at least you can say, ‘okay, that’s not it, we need to take a different approach,’ but at least you have that information to be able to make that call. Before, we weren’t getting the results we were putting in the computer in any shape or form. So, we’re sneaking up on it now, and we’re going to stay and test after these next few races, and that’ll be a tremendous opportunity for us to be able to fine-tune. I believe we need 10 solid runs to be able to make changes and put us where we need to be, and that’s where testing will come into play. We need to be able to keep up with the rest of the field, it’s as simple as that.

“I’m so proud of the whole SCAG deal that we announced last weekend, and I’m excited to get that ball rolling. They haven’t yet seen the results they deserve, but they’re about to.”