Early Exit for Tony Schumacher in Charlotte

CONCORD, NC – The winningest Top Fuel driver in NHRA history qualified for the Charlotte NHRA Four-Wide Nationals in dramatic fashion, having to rely on his Q4 pass to secure a spot in the stacked Sunday field. As the No. 15 seed, Tony Schumacher drew Leah Pruett, Brittany Force, and Spencer Massey as his first-round opponents. He took the Maynard Family/Okuma dragster to the finish line beams in 3.753 seconds but it wasn’t enough to set off the win lights against Massey and Force, who clocked a 3.749 and 3.732, respectively. While the E1 loss was a disappointment, Schumacher feels that his team is moving in the right direction and it won’t be long before the race day win lights start rolling in.

“The key to this whole thing is, realizing that we’ve had a lot of tough Sundays,” explained Schumacher of his team’s race day record through the first six events. “When you look at the beginning of the season at Pomona (Calif.), we started with a (Doug) Kalitta match-up, and then had Antron Brown and Mike Salinas in our first quad at Las Vegas, and then, Brittany Force and Steve Torrence in the finals. I mean, give me a break. We’ve had so many tough match-ups this year. This is our fault. We just qualified in the wrong spot and we’re working on some things.

“We had to make a drastic change before the last qualifying run yesterday. We changed a clutch disc and that completely changes the package, and we slid it down the track to get qualified in a tough field at Charlotte. That was an excellent job under pressure, and we did an excellent job on race day. We were in the marquee match-up, and all four cars made 3.70 runs. We were a little slow early and I think we just missed it by one run this weekend. We were just playing slight catch-up, but we made a good change to carry us forward.

“The guys are working so hard. I’m a positive guy and you don’t need to win every race to win championships; you do that by working hard and digging deep, and our team is doing that. They’re digging hard and fast to get better. I’m proud of them for making the necessary changes. I wish I would have staged first in round one today. I hate staging last, and I had an .089 light, and that’s not going to win. We had the slowest car and slowest light by a tick, and that combination is excellent if you’d like to load up and get home early.”

Schumacher is ranked ninth heading into the Virginia NHRA Nationals, the seventh stop on the 22-race NHRA tour.

Qualified: No. 15 (3.831 E.T. at 319.98 MPH)

Elimination Round Results:
E1: 3.753 E.T. at 320.89 MPH defeated by Spencer Massey 3.749 E.T. at 323.27 MPH, Brittany Force 3.732 E.T. at 329.67 MPH

Constant Aviation Factory Stock Showdown Series:

DAVID DAVIES
Driver of the D H Davies Racing® /Save our Allies Dodge Challenger Mopar Drag Pak

Qualified: No. 7 (7.843 E.T. at 179.33 MPH)

Elimination Round Results:
E1: 7.886 E.T. at 179.59 MPH defeated by Stephen Bell 7.861 E.T. at 175.91 MPH, Lenny Lottig 7.889 E.T. at 174.66 MPH

MARK PAWUK
Driver of the Empaco Equipment Dodge Challenger Mopar Drag Pak

Qualified: No. 4 (7.817 E.T. at 179.37 MPH)

Elimination Round Results:
E1: 7.822 E.T. at 178.85 MPH defeated by Aaron Stanfield 7.827 E.T. at 175.41 MPH, David Barton 7.866 E.T. at 176.07 MPH

WARREN WALCHER
Driver of the Dodge Challenger Mopar Drag Pak

Qualified: No. 8 (7.855 E.T. at 177.63 MPH)

Elimination Round Results:
E1: 7.907 E.T. at 174.80 MPH defeated by Geoff Turk 7.792 E.T. at 180.21 MPH, Bill Skillman 7.784 E.T. at 179.16 MPH