Reigning champ leads DSR to testing after record-setting season
BROWNSBURG, IN – Don Schumacher Racing’s 14 Freightliner race-team rigs left from headquarters near 
Indianapolis Sunday morning with its seven NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series teams heading west for Phoenix and four days of preseason testing that begins Wednesday at Wild Horse Motorsports Park.
The 1,775-mile trip wraps up an ambitious off-season for DSR and kicks off the unofficial start to the 2016 Mello Yello season that opens its 24-race schedule Feb. 11-14 with the 56th annual NHRA Winternationals at Pomona, Calif.
DSR and most of the best Top Fuel and Funny Car teams in NHRA will participate in private testing beginning on Wednesday with limited access to the public on Saturday for those who have purchased Friday and Sunday tickets to the Feb. 26-28 NHRA national event at Wild Horse Motorsports Park (RaceWildHorse.net).
DSR teams have been eager to get back to the track after completing a record-breaking 2015 season with 27 NHRA national event trophies led by the Antron Brown’s second Top Fuel world championship in four seasons with the Matco Tools/U.S. Army dragster team led by crew chiefs Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald.
DSR’s eight-time world champion Tony Schumacher, who won three times with the U.S. Army team, finished second in points to Brown. Shawn Langdon, who joins DSR and the Red Fuel/Sandvik Coromant team full time this year, closed 2015 by winning the last event.
In Funny Car, Jack Beckman and the Infinite Hero Dodge Charger R/T team with crew chief Jimmy Prock led DSR and nearly won their second championship in four years before losing to eventual champ Del Worsham of Kalitta Motorsports in the semifinals of the season finale.
Despite that disappointment, the Infinite Hero team dominated the 18-race regular season by winning six times and added another trophy in the six-race Countdown to the Championship playoff for a career-best seven trips to winner’s circles for Beckman.
DSR ended the season with its four Dodge Charger R/T drivers ranked in the top-five.
