NHRA Driver Tony Schumacher Joins the WDHA Morning Jolt

Tony Schumacher is an 8-time NHRA champion, and the winningest Top Fuel driver in the storied history of the National Hot Rod Association. Tony returns to New England Raceway in Epping NH for the NHRA New England Nationals May 31 – June 2.

Tony joined Jim Monaghan on the WDHA Morning Jolt to talk about this weekend’s event and what makes New England Raceway and this event so great.

NHRA Driver Tony Schumacher Interview

JIM MONAGHAN – The New England Nationals are returning to New England Raceway in Epping New Hampshire, May 31st through June 2nd.

He’s an eight-time NHRA champion. Tony Schumacher, good morning and welcome to WDHA.

TONY SCHUMACHER – Good morning. I am looking forward to getting up there, man.

JM – What is makes Epping New Hampshire, that track so great, so special, Tony?

TS – Well, I live in Austin, Texas. So it feels like I’m in another country. It’s so far away.

We all grew up, not in Top Fuel, but progressing through the ranks, all these drivers and families that race in the professional categories, but we all started in tracks like Union Grove, Wisconsin, small tracks where, you know, the town just rallies around it.

And when you get to Epping, it’s not a super stadium. It’s very much kind of our home track.

Great people, just great people that love when we come there. You know, there’s there’s we just raced Chicago. And I mean, massive stadium, but Chicago’s a stick-and-ball state, you know, and racing is like,
the stepchild.

So it’s really cool when you get out to a place where man, they just absolutely love it. They’re thankful you’re there because drag racing is unique.

All get the fans get pit passes. So you get to interact and you get to hear what they’re thinking. And it’s just a place that respects what we do loves what we do and appreciate us being there. And we love giving back.

JM – The drag strip in Englishtown here in New Jersey closed a couple of years ago. But that used to be one of my favorite things, Tony, go down, go into the pit. And it was the smells. I mean, I’ve always loved the smell of gasoline.

I was a car junkie when I was in high school and college, loved taking things apart, the smell of gasoline.

But it was the smell in the pit of everything that was going on that just attracted me so much.

The Joy of Working On Cars

TS – It is you know, and anyone that works on cars when you walk in on the garage and the smell of the tools and the smell of the oil and the smell of leaking fuel, you know, it’s just, you know, people that work on cars, we love going to the garage and smelling the leaky fuel because it’s like, “Oh, we got to fix something!”

If it all smells perfect, you know, it’s like, “Oh, man, it’s all done.”

A good story, my son, when he was young, he’s like, let’s build something.

He got all these tools. So I bought a Trans Am, ’78 Trans Am from up East, Pennsylvania, actually, and when it got home, you know, 13,000 original miles on it, he goes, all right, let’s work on it.

And I went, it’s kind of original.

And he’s like, would you do that for then?

You know, I bought him all the way, and we built it, we spent four years building up just a hopped up old Smokey the Bandit car.

We don’t drive it much, but it’s there. And you got that smell of the fuel and the awesomeness of the old style cars.

Now, what do you do with the car? You drive it, put gas in it, or plug it in depending on your, you know, and that’s it.

So great, great to be part of that still. And I made my living up. And so I love it.

JM – You mentioned that you’re racing Top Fuel. And we should point out that that’s the fastest if I’m not mistaken of all the drag racing, right? You can go from zero to 100 in less than a second. That’s moving!

TS – Yeah, there’s nothing in the world that moves quick. Funny Car and Top Fuel, quickest accelerating machines in the world. And they’re just they’re beasts, you know, I mean, 330 miles an hour. And like you said, 0.8, we accelerate over 100 miles per hour.

The whole game is based off the preparation, you know, you prepare, you prepare, and then the race is three seconds long.

I think I always related to, you know, I’m a Clint Eastwood nut I love watching some Clint Eastwood movies. And he wasn’t a cowboy in real life. But you know, the real cowboys, it wasn’t about the facing off with another dude. It was about the amount of hours you prepared for it.

And it’s the same kind of thing. It’s just that it’s a beast.

At the end of the line, you know, when you’re in this, when you’re in the car, you’re looking at the Christmas tree, you can use your other peripheral vision, you can see the finish line.

Very few sports can you start where you’re starting and see the finish line, see that goal, that short sprint.

And there’s gonna be a winner, there’s gonna be a loser, just a few seconds. And I think that’s a pretty Cowboy Moment.

Motorsports Hall of Fame Induction

JM – We mentioned that you are an eight time NHRA champion. And you’re also the winningest top fuel driver in NHRA history. You’re going to be inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America’s class of 2025. What does that mean to you?

TS – I just means I’ve been blessed with some of the greatest teams that NHRA has ever seen. I think, you know, really, it’s great that they give the accolades to the driver. And I appreciate that. I really do. You know, I’ve worked my whole life for that.

But so did the people that build the cars, you know, they work more hours than I did by far.

So I think, you know, for the drivers looking at doing what we did, put yourself around class A plus people, and then ride the moment out, you know, you know, nobody wants to be the weak link.

So you got to rise up and step up and do your job.

But really leading the teams, you know, and I’ve had several great, great crew chiefs to everyone knows Alan Johnson, he’s won a lot of championships. But Mike Green has too, and Dan also won with me.

And Mike Knapp, who I have right now, heck, we were on path to win it with the Army, when the Army went away. So we finished number two. But now that he’s back, we have a chance to go out. Once we get everything working right, we’re going to go out and try to win this month too.

JM – You have some very cool music that is the background on some of your Instagram videos. How’s your guitar playing coming?

TS – It’s okay. I don’t know that I’ll ever get better. I’m in a status quo spot. I’m happy I can pull up an iPad and play most songs. I know most chords. And it’s just fun.

You know, I’m I’m the kind of dude that when you when you travel as much as we do, you got to bust at the racetrack and you know, bring a guitar along and gives you something to do for the other 23 and a half hours.

I work for six minutes a year, you know, when we put it into perspective, right? Got a lot of time to learn.

You think I’d be a rock star. And I think the funny part is that we rock star wants to drive a race car and every race car driver wants to be a rock star. Just a small, you know, revolving door there. We all want what we can’t have.

JM – Well, some of our listeners won tickets over the past couple of weeks, Tony, and they will be with you at the New England Nationals, New England Raceway in Epping, New Hampshire. It’s May 31st through June 2nd. All the details online at nhra.com.

Tony Schumacher, thank you for joining us this morning. Best of luck this coming weekend.

TS – I look forward to it. Now we’ll see you guys there. And glad you won. Come on out and visit.