Whether he is racing at over 300 mph on a drag strip or talking to fans and members of the military, National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Top Fuel driver Tony Schumacher is always on the move.
On the track, the eight time Top Fuel champion has won more Top Fuel event titles than any driver and was the first to reach 330 mph, both at 1,000 feet and at 1,320 feet.
However, it is his actions off the track that set Schumacher apart from other drivers. Schumacher makes it a priority to engage with fans by frequently signing autographs and taking pictures in the pits at NHRA events. He and his racing team have played active roles in improving NHRA driver safety. Schumacher is proud to be actively involved with the Army, which has been his sponsor for most of his career. Schumacher has helped the Army with recruiting and has also taken part in several military activities, including U.S. Army Golden Knights airplane jumps and hands-on experiences with military equipment.
Schumacher was in Southern California this weekend for the Circle K NHRA Winternationals at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona. This was the first event of the 2016 NHRA Mellow Yellow Drag Racing Series season. USC Annenberg Media's James McDaniels sat down with Schumacher between the first and second qualifying runs on Friday. In the interview, Schumacher elaborated on his career, improving safety, the future of technology and his pride to represent the Army.
James: "You have earned the nickname 'The Sarge' among both soldiers and race fans. However, some fans might not realize that 'The Sarge' nickname was originally meant for your racecar. What caused you to decide to make 'The Sarge' your nickname and did you think of that nickname yourself or was it suggested by someone else?"
Schumacher: "That's a really great question. I've always said you earn 'The Sarge' when you join the Army and you've worked your way up. I think that the car's nickname being 'The Sarge' was designed specifically because the recruiting effort that they're putting into this is to recruit the enlisted soldier who can rise up through the ranks and become a Sergeant of the United States Army. Fans and soldiers over the years started calling me 'The Sarge', and for a while, I felt uneasy about it because I hadn't earned that. And that term I don't take lightly. It's something that over 16 years now, I might have earned it. I've jumped out of planes, I've been to Afghanistan and Iraq, driven tanks, trained with the Rangers, trained with everyone out there. I had some great opportunities. I've helped enlist a lot of soldiers and watched them go through their careers, retire and become civilians again. I've been doing this for a long, long time and it's not something I partly believe in. It's 100 percent behind every one of these soldiers in all the branches. I drive for the United States Army and that's who I represent, but I'm an American, so in reality we represent every one of those awesome branches out there."
James: "In a 2010 article by the Army, you said that when you got into a Top Fuel dragster for the first time, you were wondering what you were getting into. Yet, you moved up quickly from a 160 mph Super Comp dragster in 1992 all the way to an NHRA Top Fuel dragster four years later in 1996. Thus, what is it about drag racing that made you continue racing and what factors would you say contributed the most to your early career success, before you began racing NHRA Top Fuel dragsters?"
Schumacher: "That's a really awesome question. It was about people. I loved being there. I didn't want to go home. The people that I was around working on cars with, they were excellent at what they did. Maybe my friends at home were good guys and we hung out, but they weren't the excellent kind like that. These people knew how to work on stuff. They knew how to engineer, how to develop, how to come up with new ideas. It was fascinating and it still is. The people I work with now could launch a space shuttle; they're that good. They are brilliant and minded. They know how to adapt to situations, which we did today. We went out and ran an incredible run after all the conditions changed from where we were last week in Phoenix testing. And to be able to put your trust in a group of people that are that good is a very special thing."
James: "In a 2002 interview with NHRA Communications, you said you evolved a lot from Dan Olson, particularly with shallow staging and driving. Now, more than a decade since that interview, what parts of Olson's advice have worked well for you and what parts have you changed in your driving style?"
Schumacher: "That's a great question. I've just fine-tuned it. I've fine-tuned what I do, how I do it. [When] staging shallow, you can do it in many different ways. You ultimately have to end up shallow, the point of staging shallow, but [it's] the way you move—the motion, the calmness or the hyperness—that you need to bring to the table to get your reactions to go along with it. When you go in shallow, it hurts your reaction time. Be[ing] able to increase and make the car look better by shallow staging, so the elapsed time, 3.75 seconds, is better than if I went in deep and it was 3.77 seconds. My reaction time slows with it. This is complicated, but I have to increase my talent to go in shallow and still make the numbers look like I know what I'm doing. It's complicated to understand, but if you're part of this fine-tuning the way you do things—the eating healthy, the working out, the staying fit, being mentally prepared, being physically strong—all those things to make yourself still fit in the game as you grow older, is a big part of the deal."
James: "In terms of your racing career, you have won eight championships, including six straight from 2004 to 2009. However, some of them have come down to the last race of a season. You even had to win and break a world record within a small window in the final race of the season, in 2006, to win your fourth NHRA Top Fuel title. When your team's entire weekend, or even year, is on the line, what is the information you want to know most from your crew before a run and how do you remain focused at the task at hand?"
Schumacher: "I want to know that they don't need to communicate, that they're each so good that nobody has to walk up to me and tell me this is a big moment. And that's exactly what I saw: calmness [and] preparedness. Like I tell everybody, over-prepare and go with the flow; the flow is beautiful. [When] you show up for your next test in college, don't study for anything and see how well that goes. We show up 100 percent prepared, knowing that it's a gifted moment that we prayed for our whole life and wanted and we have it. The last thing you do is show up to the table unprepared for that moment."
James: "Moving on to other things that you have contributed to the sport, in 2008 you worked with John Force and Kenny Bernstein to help develop a sensor that shuts down the fuel pump and deploys the parachutes when the sensor detects backfire in a nitromethane engine. Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) also helped manufacture the driver canopy in an effort to improve safety. How did these ideas become reality and how have their safety impacts on the sport been the same and different from what was envisioned?"
Schumacher: "I think you have got to start by going to the crew for that. I probably hear of that two years after it starts. The people that engineer these things are so far ahead of us. Part of our gift being that we drive for the Army car is we have great technology. We are not going to hoard it, we are not going to keep it because I've lost friends here. We want the safety to flow through the NHRA [so] everybody has a chance to use it. But it comes with testing. It comes with trial and error. It comes with engineers, STEM, science, technology, engineering [and] math… When I get in a car, every angle, every design, every wax we use is either to gain some slickness or to stop wind from flowing over, so everything we do is for an absolute purpose. Our engineers, the people we have back at DSR and all of the teams work fairly well together. Obviously, it is our job to beat the car next to us; we want that edge. But if it's a safety edge, it's shared between everybody."
James: "Continuing with the technology aspect, technology has been a key tool to the fan experience in motor sports like the NHRA. Instant replays and cameras on the dragsters are great visual tools for fans. And in addition to that, fans can go onto the NHRA website to view the results for races, complete with data like elapsed times, reaction times, speeds, matchup summaries, and even detailed weather and track conditions. What technological advances do you think will be making their way to the NHRA next that will further enhance the fan experience and what would you like to see?"
Schumacher: "I think it's going to go virtual. I think you will be able to click on your computer at home and you'll be able to watch what team you want, what angle you want from the camera you want… I think there is (sic) so many different advancements we have in technology right now. I think, kids today, they don't want to wait to find out in three hours. They could find out right now almost everything they do. We don't have to watch a series anymore and wait till next week. We could fast forward most stuff and know a whole season in a week. It's a difficult thing because what we're gaining in technology, we're losing in patience. We used to have to be patient. We watched the show, waited a week, saw the next show. Kids don't understand that anymore. Overall, I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing. But I can tell you one thing: it's going to keep going. We're not going to slow the technology. Everything we do with technology triples and quadruples the next thing that is coming. It makes it so much easier for the next thing to come. We just don't know where we're going to end up; it's going to be incredible soon."
James: "Something you talked about earlier in this interview was preparedness. Back to that 2010 article that I mentioned, you also mentioned in that article [in other articles] that being prepared has been the most important to the success of your team and in life and that having many big moments has made it easier for you to talk about being prepared. You also stated it took you 'years to realize this' about being prepared. What made you come to the conclusion that preparedness was the key trait both you and everyone needs for achievement?"
Schumacher: "I think just time. I don't think you can teach that in a one sit-down thing. I think it's something that you have to have that moment and you have to have it again and again. You have to realize that, 'wow, prepared outcomes, great and when I show up just kind of average [and] not caring, not always so good.' Then you got to surround yourself with other people with the same mentality, and it is a fine line between a great person and someone that is absolutely perfect. Perfection is very narrow in its lines. We hand-select, we choose, we think about it, we prepare. At the end of the day, we dream of those big moments. Some people choke when they have those big moments and they threw up in their helmets. We are not like that. We look forward to that moment, and when we get it, we absolutely, positively destroy."
James: "Long-term success with the same sponsors is always impressive. You said in a Daily Bulletin article last year that your team's 'extra hard' work had been the key to maintaining your sponsorship with the U.S. Army since the year 2000. You have said you are 'glad to represent soldiers' and have shown it by visiting many military bases and even laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Besides your sponsorship, what fuels your close relationship to the military and what are some of your favorite off-track, military-related experiences?"
Schumacher: "Man, I have done so many. I think anybody who has an American heart can go and stand around soldiers and hear their stories and know that what we do is so small compared to what they do. We earn paychecks; we do our job for ourselves and that's a fact. They do it for the guy next to them. It's a very special thing and it's something that runs through our team; we see that, we feel that. When I'm in that car and I'm hot and I'm uncomfortable, I look over and see a man or a woman in uniform and I realize, 'they're hotter and they've been to Afghanistan where it's hotter than this.' It's calming and it's cooling to know that there are people so giving that what we're doing isn't that difficult."
James: "Since you have been actively recruiting people to join the Army for several years, do you have any success stories from members of the Army that you have personally recruited, and if so, what are some of your favorites?"
Schumacher: "So many. I had a dad last year during my center of influence speech. He come (sic) up and he said, 'you know, you talk about you're an idiot-proof speech… there's the smartest person and then there's the idiot in the group.' He said, 'my son put his head down.' This was actually at Pomona a year ago, so when I did my speech at the beginning, they came back at the end of the year and his father said, 'my son put his head down. Since then, he's gotten straight A's, he's joined the military, he's gotten his grade-point up and he's doing what he wanted to do and couldn't do before.' It's those little stories. I can't change everybody; everyone is not going to listen. There are some people that are born to not listen and there's (sic) some people that are born to take the lead. This kid was just one of those stories where I felt like what I said and what I did made a difference in his life."
James: "I want to end by looking to the future. You've been building a legacy for years in the NHRA for your actions on and off the track and you're still going strong while also being a husband to your wife, Cara, and a father to your three children. What role has your family personally played on the success of your race team and how much influence will they have on your racing career decisions in the future?"
Schumacher: "First, to be a man, it's family first. God first, family second and your job can fall in place where it may. They help in every way. They comfort me, they prepare me to go out the door, my wife's the one that pushes me when I don't want to go to the gym; all of these little things. My kids just show absolute love. [They] love what I do [and] love that I'm their father. There's nothing more that needs to be done by them in any way, shape or form… You need to be a good man before you can be a good soldier."
Annenberg Media