Tony Schumacher wins NHRA Spring Nationals in Houston

Tony Schumacher

Tony Schumacher clinched his 57th Top Fuel win of career this weekend, at the 22nd annual O'Reilly NHRA Spring Nationals presented by Pennzoil at Houston Raceway Park. The win – his first this season – lifted Schumacher to 2nd place in the point standings, only one point ahead of 3rd placed Brandon Bernstein.

Schumacher started the day with an impressive first round win over Del Cox. Jr, and continued his dominating run with strong finishes ahead of Morgan Lucas and Larry Dixon. Finally, it came down to Schumacher and teammate Cory McClenathan for the overall win, a rematch of 2005's final at Houston Raceway Park.

The two former Top Fuel champions provided the audience with a hell of a run, with Schumacher taking the win thanks to a holeshot. McClenathan's time, although .001 better than Schumacher's, was only good for 2nd place. The latter, driving a Fram Tough Guard dragster (set up by Todd Okuhara and Phil Shuler) needed a holeshot of his own during his 2nd round win over Antron Brown.

“Winning on a holeshot, those are just numbers, man. Unless you have a great car that can leave like that, it doesn't mean anything; it takes the whole team. Take that exact same car with different pressure behind the barrel valve, and it wouldn't leave at all. It's a group of guys doing a job and making me look good,” said Schumacher in an interview for NHRA official site.

“Everyone knows we don’t have AJ (former championship-winning crew chief Alan Johnson) anymore, and people said we couldn't win without him, so we had to dig deep, and I love 'suck it up' moments – bottom of the ninth, bases loaded – and that's what we had all day,” added the 5-time and reigning Top Fuel champion.