DSR teams head to Florida for PRO Winter Warm-up

2015 NHRA Mello Yello season starts in three weeks!

BROWNSBURG, IN – Don Schumacher Racing will begin preparing to earn its next NHRA Top Fuel and Funny Car world championships this week at Palm Beach International Raceway in Jupiter, Fla., during the biggest event of the pre-season and first opportunity of the year for fans to see the fastest race cars on earth.

DSR’s reigning NHRA world championship U.S. Army team with Tony Schumacher and the Mopar Express Lane/Rocky Boots 2015 Dodge Charger R/T with Matt Hagan will lead the seven-car DSR contingent to the warmth of Florida for private testing on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday before the fifth annual PRO Winter Warm-up spectator event on Friday and Saturday that lead to the Feb. 6-8 Winternationals at Pomona, Calif., that will open the 2015 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season.

The U.S. Army unit led by crew chief Mike Green won the team’s eighth Top Fuel title last year while the Mopar/Rocky team led by Dickie Venables earned its second Funny Car championship in four years.

The PBIR event also will be the racing public’s first opportunity to see DSR’s all-new 2015 Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car body in action, and the debut of former Funny Car world champion crew chief Jimmy Prock and assistant John Medlen leading the Infinite Hero Foundation Dodge driven by 2012 world champion Jack Beckman.

In 2014, DSR won 14 Top Fuel and seven Funny Car event titles to increase DSR’s total to 240 including 235 since 1999. The double-up world championships increased DSR’s total to 13 and marked the third time it ended a Mello Yello season with both nitro championships; Antron Brown and Jack Beckman won in 2012 and Schumacher and Gary Scelzi won in 2005.

The four days in Florida provide the last opportunity to get ready to open the Mello Yello season three weeks later.

“The difference between testing and practicing is you don’t make many changes when your practicing,” said Todd Okuhara, DSR’s director of racing and co-crew chief on Spencer Massey’s Red Fuel Powered by Schumacher Top Fuel Dragster.

“We want to go there and try some new things and see if we want to implement them during the season. It also is a chance for our crews to knock some of the rust off from the last couple months and give our new crew guys time adjust to their new teams under racing conditions.”