Guitar-toting Tony Schumacher might want to learn a new song to strum the rest of the season, or at least to motivate himself for the upcoming start of the Countdown to the Championship. Try the Nirvana hit "The Money Will Roll Right In."
| It's fun to be a star. It's nice to have a car. Yeah, you'll have to admit, that I'll be rich as sh-- And I'll just sit and grin. The money will roll right in. |
He earned $40,000 on July 20th for the U.S. Army Dragster team, taking less than 16 seconds to plant himself into the Puget Sound landscape of icons. He has advanced to the past five final rounds at Pacific Raceways and has won four, including the past three.
Moreover, the Chicago-area resident has won seven of the season's 14 races in nine final-round appearances. He shared the winners circle with first-time pro victor Tony Bartone (Funny Car) and Jason Line (Pro Stock).
"We've been a pressure team for years. Right now, we're just having a great time, and the car's running great. It's going right down the track, doing exactly what (crew chief) Alan Johnson tells it to do. It doesn't seem to matter where we go -- at altitude or sea level, we run strong," Schumacher said after beating Brandon Bernstein and positioning himself perhaps to become only the sixth pro driver to sweep the three-race Western Swing.
"When you get on a roll like this, watch out. When we're playing together as a team, we're hard to beat," he said of his outfit. And though with 48 victories he's just four behind legend Joe Amato for career Top Fuel triumphs (as he tries this year to break his tie with Amato for a sixth series title), Schumacher credits his support system.
"It's just an outstanding team. It's a group of guys who are the best," he said. "I could've been the same exact guy, the same exact driver, driving for a different team and not be winning."
Schumacher, the top qualifier and points leader, defeated Bernstein in a rematch of the 2005 and 2007 final rounds at Seattle. This time he won with a 3.902-second elapsed time at 309.98 mph to Bernstein's 4.056/291.19 in the Budweiser/Lucas Oil Dragster.