MORRISON — For five-time defending NHRA top fuel champion Tony Schumacher, life in the fast lane is as good now as it was a year ago. Coming off a 2008 season that included 15 event wins and 18 final-round appearances in 24 races, Schumacher enters today’s finals of the Mopar Mile-High Nationals at Bandimere Speedway third in the standings, just three points out of second.
The most gratifying aspect of Schumacher’s “rebuilding” season is he’s in championship contention without legendary crew chief Alan Johnson.
Johnson and six crew members left Don Schumacher Racing in the offseason to create Alan Johnson Al-Anabi Racing’s top fuel team, driven by Larry Dixon and co-owned by Khalid Al-Thani, son of the emir of Qatar.
Dixon, who is second in the standings behind Antron Brown, has amassed a division-high four wins this season, one more than Schumacher.
Call it a friendly rivalry between Schumacher’s Army-sponsored team and a rookie team sponsored by Qatar, an American ally and home to a large U.S. Army base.
“When you beat them, you’re going to enjoy it,” Schumacher said of Dixon and his former crew members. “You look for that moment. But everyone has wanted me to bash (Johnson) for leaving, but the fact is, he’s wanted to have his own team for a long time . . . and crew members tend to follow crew chiefs. I understand why they left.
“We had Alan for five years and that was a gift to be a part of something like that for so long. But I also feel now that it’s a gift to race against him.”
Schumacher is 1-0 on race day against Dixon this year, with the reigning champion winning a semifinal race March 29 in Houston. The veterans made a side-by-side qualifying pass late Friday night at Bandimere, with Schumacher reaching the finish line before the tire-smoking Dixon.
Not everyone is willing to call the Schumacher-Dixon pairing a rivalry.
“Rivalries are more like football teams that hate each other,” said Neal Strausbaugh, Schumacher’s assistant crew chief who a year ago worked for Don Schumacher Racing’s other top fuel team driven by Cory McClenathan. “It’s not like that, but there’s definitely some intense moments when we’re racing.”
Jim Marcellus, Johnson’s longtime cylinder specialist, said leaving Schumacher was the toughest decision he made in drag racing.
“We had all been with Don (Schu- cher) for a long time — up to 10 years for some of us,” Marcellus said. “But from a crew member’s standpoint, you’re more aligned with the crew chief than owner, because that’s who you really answer to and work for.”
Schumacher, the defending champion at Bandimere, is left with fond memories and excitement for the future.
“We won everything last year, as a team. But it wasn’t just Alan, as people want to say, and it wasn’t just me. It was all of us,” he said.
“And what we did in the last five years . . . is simply amazing.”
Schumacher and Dixon qualified third and fourth, respectively, for today’s eliminations.
Schumacher broke Bandimere’s 1,000-foot elapsed-time (3.922 seconds) and speed (312.28 mph) records Friday night, but teammate McClenathan rewrote those standards a little later with a pass of 3.882, 317.05.
