We Are The Champions!

by Chris Martin and Jeff Burk

TONY SCHUMACHER

This Christmas Tony Schumacher turns 30, and what a sweet holiday that will be this year: He's the new Winston Top Fuel champ. (Damn, it's hard to flush out what's left of my National Dragster reflexes. I'm diabetic and had I continued to write that sugary jazz, it would have eventually cost me my legs. Aw, to hell with it, let's try again ... )

Hey, this Christmas, Jesus turns 1,998 years old and new Winston Top Fuel champ Tony Schumacher cracks 30. (Rats, just threw up in church, although I'll bet J.C. himself would say that was a cute intro. Scene 1, Take 3).

Somewhere, there's got to be a middleground. Okay ....

As you can tell, I'm at a loss for words, I did not start the year thinking Tony Schumacher would wind up numero uno. Not when "2 a.m. Racing," the Johnson Family/Winston team with two-time defending champ Gary Scelzi are still around. Not when former five-time Winston champ Joe Amato is granted room for a dissenting opinion. And not when the Kalittas, Kenny Bernstein, Doug Herbert, and the Mopar/Mike Dunn outfit haven't had their chance at the plate. But I'll be damned.

I remember Schumacher as being a gutty kid when he started out. He started his career very late in the 1980s with a jet dragster, followed by Alcohol cars (dragster and funny cars). In 1996, the Park Ridge, Ill., driver turned in a really heroic Top Fuel debut when he took the underfunded and mechanically bloodied Peek Bros. dragster to the U.S. Nationals final to face Cory McClenathan in the Joe "Super Bowl Coach and Top Fuel/Funny Car contender" Gibbs McDonald's dragster.

En route to that particular destiny, Tony drew a 21-second single in round one in the decade's most heartwrenching win (Blaine Johnson, his scheduled foe and No. 1 qualifier, was killed in a terrible crash during qualifying), and followed with a motor-banging, oil-spraying 5.17 win over Larry Dixon. A 6.29, 250.41 gusher put him past Mike Dunn and in the final with McClenathan, who had skated to that slot in comparative ease with 4.77, 4.74, and 4.73 wins. The predictable final went to McClenathan, 4.73 to 5.74, but what the hey, nobody, but nobody would've thought Schumacher would have gotten that far. Sure he was lucky, but just qualifying was a moral victory.

In some ways, his 1999 triumph is similar to the debut. Had he finished in the Winston Top 10 this year, that in and of itself would've been a step up. In the two years following his Indy effort, Schumacher made three more Top Fuel finals, but remained winless and with a year-end finish no better than 13th (1997).

Two big things happened in 1999 that made all the difference: The aquisition of crew chief Dan Olson, who still remains one of the sport's genuinely underrated talents, and the procurement of Exide Batteries as a major sponsor.

Still, the season was an uphill battle for the son of drag racing Funny Car great Don Schumacher. The skies briefly cleared initially with an incredible 330.23-mph charge (the first and only speed in the 330s) at the Checker/Schuck's/Kragen Nationals in Arizona in February, but it wasn't until late October that Schumacher won his first event, the O'Reilly Fall Nationals at the Texas Motorplex. (He had earned four runner-ups this season before the Motorplex raid.) The timing of that win and a subsequent semi-final finish at the next NHRA biggie, the Houston Matco Tools bash, allowed Tony to go into the Winston Finals needing only to qualify to win the Winston title. "Point, match, game, Mr. Sampras."

The win does a number of good things for Schumacher, leaving aside the title. He is one of those unfortunate (and that's not the right word here, but it'll have to do) racers who has probably had to live with a spoiled rich kid tag because he comes from a wealthy family. In addition, he also carries the added weight of having a father who legitimately can be called one of the great Funny Car racers of all time. Nothing like having a little pressure stacked on you. Yet, by all appearances, he has handled it well. No 3 a.m. busts with a crack pipe in the lap or screaming pit area tantrums. He seems to be genuinely liked and, off what he's done, genuinely talented. He looks good on camera, speaks articulately and should do the sport proud in the snot-nosed world of image and public relations.

Can he do it again? Of the big three Winston champs, he'll have it the toughest. Let's face it, he won just one race while guys like Amato and Herbert won five and four event titles respectively. Late this summer, talk began to circulate about Schumacher maybe becoming only the second NHRA Winston Top Fuel champ to win a season title without winning an event. That was, of course, until the O'Reilly race in October. (The first and still only winless NHRA fuel champ was Washington's Rob Bruins at the wheel of Gaines Markley's dragster in 1979.)

Unlike Schumacher, Force and W.J. whipped out the brass knuckles early this season and never stopped giving the competition the once-over, and as a result never looked back in the points chase. However, if mile an hour still means horsepower, then Schumacher's crew chief Dan Olson does a have a slight edge currently. Not only did Olson tune the first 330, but his wrenching skills landed the Schumacher clan second and third best speeds of 327.90 and 327.27 mph and an NHRA national record of 326.91 mph set at the O'Reilly confab.

I'd bet against a repeat, but I wouldn't be slackjawed, not nearly as surprised as this year, if Tony Schumacher was ahead in the points when the final bell ended the 2000 season. The team finished 1999 like champions, closing with a flurry, and that's the right way to go into a new season.

— CM

WARREN JOHNSON

According to the Winston 1999 Media Guide, now five-time Pro Stock champ Warren Johnson lists "work" as his hobby. It's been said that W.J. almost never fails to spend time in his shop when home in Sugar Hill, Ga., and that includes the holidays, non-holiday weekends, weddings, birthdays, deaths, you name it. Imagine having gone through life and never seen an episode of the "A-Team" or "the Donny & Marie Show?" That's how dedicated Johnson is. It's been said that he's worn out so many keys and locks in his shop that Schlage is standing in line for sponsorship if GM and AC Delco ever leave the party, and that's not likely because W.J. just signed with them through the year 2002.

Obviously, Johnson's heroics speak to what kind of work he does and that is successfully extracting horsepower from 500-cid configuration V-8 engines. In the history of Pro Stock only one driver has done it better, the great Bob Glidden and that distinction is in imminent peril given the fact that Johnson now has 80 (or 81) wins. It should also be remembered that 34 of Glidden's 85 wins came when NHRA utilized a pounds to cubic inch ratio where the winning engine combinations were anywhere from 350- to 360-cid type.

The best thing that ever happened to Johnson in terms of his current success and very much related to the above was something that took place 17 years ago. In 1982, NHRA switched to the 500-cid limit, "Mountain Motors," if you will, and right away Johnson, who had been winless in NHRA competition up until that time, leaped up on stage. He won the NHRA Summernationals, the Golden Gate Nationals, and the Winston Finals and finished third in the 1982 Winston Pro Stock Top 10.

Johnson's rapid ascent had a firm material basis because he went into the '82 NHRA season as likely the world's best big inch racer. He was the IHRA Pro Stock champion in 1979 and 1980 aboard Jerome Bradford's Camaro (IHRA went with 500 inches before NHRA) whipping the likes of Ronnie Sox, Rickie Smith, Lee Edwards and Roy Hill en route to those titles. In 1981 he ran the first AHRA Pro Stock seven when he carded a 7.93 in Bradford's exotic Chevy Monte Carlo while winning the Gateway Nationals in St. Louis. It figured that he wouldn't have much trouble in jousting with NHRA stalwarts like Glidden, Lee Shepherd, and Frank Iaconio when the Californians went the big inch route.

Most know the Johnson Pro Stock litany since then. In addition to event titles and season championships, he was the first NHRA driver over the 160, 180, 190, and 200-mph barriers, the first one in the 6.8-second zone, is the all-time NHRA Pro Stock speed king having set Top Speed 151 times as of January 1999 and closed this season with a stunning NHRA record run of 6.822, 202.33.

Over the years, Johnson has always been regarded as one of the sport's premier horsepower makers, but has sustained some criticism from insiders that he may not be the class' best driver. When one considers the fact that he spent at least the first 15 years of his career racing rough and tumble tracks in the Midwest on the UDRA circuit, not to mention some of the cow pastures in the deep South and still winning, the argument goes a tad flaccid. It's true that some of the younger drivers have nailed "the Professor" at the line and on occasion have won those set-tos, but five Winston titles and the rest almost reduce those jibes to the "So What" category.

One final thing on "the Professor" that is well worth noting. When he decides to quit driving, he will pretty much end a great drag racing tradition: He is the last of the successful one-man racing operations. Of course, he's got a crew and advisers, but everyone knows that the buck stops with him; the tune up is Warren's and so is the driving. He makes it all go. Other than Eddie Hill in Top Fuel, W.J. is all that's left of the Don Garlits tradition, one great racer who if everyone got sick on his crew could make a race date (preferrably a match race), and if nothing broke, would be the overwhelming favorite to win.

And that's what I think is the case for 2000. Warren's the man they'll all have to beat and it will take (cue drum roll!) lots of work.

— CM

FRANK MANZO

A lot of the press railbirds on the NHRA national event circuit respectfully refer to Frank "Ace" Manzo as "the Punisher," because he appears to really break out the whip when he does his burnouts. I choose to think it's because he whips the pabulum out of the competition. The 34-time NHRA event champion captured the Federal-Mogul Funny Car title for the fifth time (1981, 1986, 1997, 1998, and 1999), which is a record. Pat Austin was the old record holder with four. Admittedly, winning the FMFC championship ain't what she used to be. The FMFC class by all appearances seems to be giving off a death rattle what with the vast majority of NHRA 16-car national event fields short by as many as a half dozen cars. Still, this should not diminish Manzo's efforts. When you have competition like Austin, 1996 champ Tony Bartone, and 1992 king Bob Newberry still playing, it's hard to win. Not only that, but in NHRA Division 1 competition, Manzo won five of six points races and closed the year as the possessor of the NHRA FMFC speed record at 258.12 mph.

- CM

JIMMY DeFRANK

The most famous racer from Tarzana, Calif., Jimmy DeFrank, captured the Federal-Mogul Super Stock title for the second time in his young career, the first coming in 1997. When DeFrank, 22, won his 1997 title, he was the first NHRA Division 7 Super Stock racer to win the championship this decade. He also celebrated his debut year of 1995 when he was 17 by winning the Winston Finals Super Stock honors. This season, DeFrank captured titles at the Winternationals, the first O'Reilly Nationals, and the Northwest Nationals as well as winning the Division 7 Super Stock points championship. Ironically, his younger brother, Tony finished second in that Division this year, which if nothing else, will increase the pressure for the Tarzanian next season. Not only will he have to deal with the usual grief from the Dan Fletchers, the Biondos, the Lincoln Moreheads, and the Richardson Bros., but it just may develop his toughest competitor sits across the dinner table from him at home.

- CM

Photos by Jeff Burk

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