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NATIONAL HOT ROD ASSOCIATION MEDIA CONFERENCEMarch 4, 2015Tony SchumacherSCOTT SMITH: We are joined by Tony Schumacher. He is the most recent race winner in Phoenix, which was his 78th career victory and his first of the season. He also set a career best lap time of 3.720 seconds. He has four career wins in Gainesville. Tony, like we talked about with Matt, where has this strong start for you and your team come from? TONY SCHUMACHER: We've done it before. It's not the first time we won races at the beginning of the year. Hopefully we continue on because so often you see these awesome starts peter off in the middle of the year. It takes a team that's outstanding to maintain that. There's a lot of races this year, man. Honestly, I'm not going to jinx myself, because we were not elite, we weren't the only car going fast. Everybody is now. The battles are tough. I said it at the end of last year when we were doing this exact thing, it's all over the time of one car being good and everybody else fighting for second place. I didn't drive very well at the last race. I think the crew really carried me. The car was fast at the right times. Not the fastest every lap, didn't have lane choice every time, but we raced well. I think we saw the results were good. We've had years where you do almost everything right and you get beat, too. Little bit of a lucky start, but a good, fast racecar to get the year going with. SCOTT SMITH: We'll take questions for Tony. Q. Tony, I am curious about your impressions of Gainesville. With so many milestones happening here, I'd like to know what you remember, where you were when the 300 miles per hour happened, what your impressions were? Also, the fact that then the sport was built up on these performance changes from year over year that the fans could identify, Amato has a tall wing, he's going to go faster, compared to now where most of the performance changes are things we cannot see, how you think that has changed the sport? TONY SCHUMACHER: Well, my dad told me a car went 300 miles an hour, Bernstein did it. I wasn't there for that. I go back and forth. We know NASCAR, drag racing, IndyCar, has changed possibly too much. I don't like seeing all the cars exactly the same. I remember when they used to do dry hops, the cars looked different. Bernstein made a Batmobile. Some Funny Cars looked one way. Amato had enclosed this. The cars were different. I think we've come so far where the cars are so identical, we've taken the fun out of it. We've got to get it back. I don't know how you do it. I don't know if you unlimit it for a year. We're not expanding as quick as we need to be. I don't know that it would hurt anybody at all to say, We're going to let the bodies be a little bit different, give you a year to do some extreme stuff, make some big changes we haven't seen in a long time, whether it's the wing, the canopies, stuff like that. Even Funny Car, they all look so much alike, kind of lost the Ford-Chevy battle, the Dodge battle, king of the sport. The drivers look the same. We need to separate from that. We need to get back to, you know, the craziness of what (indiscernible) is going to bring out of trailer this week. How do you control that? Whole different world. It's very difficult. Probably why they're so uniform right now because NHRA has a set of rules and we have to follow them. In doing so, it makes the sport and the drivers have to step up, but it kind of takes away from the fun of the whole different bodies, fans pulling for their favorite cars. I don't know. I think I talked in a full circle because there's just no right answer. Q. Tony, Doug Kalitta won a bunch of races but not a championship. How much do you respect him as driver? Could he break through at any point and win a championship? TONY SCHUMACHER: Absolutely. We're all pulling for him. He's a great guy. Great guy. Humble. Just an outstanding dude. Won a ton of races. They've had that luck where you start out so amazing, come down to the last race and get beat. I don't know. I'm the guy on the other side that's done it to him. But respect him as much as I respect any other driver out there, him and his team. Connie, just a guy that is so giving, not only for our sport of drag racing, but for our military. He flies a ton of flights. I'm behind him. I'm their competition. Obviously I want to win. But he could break through any day. Really I'm not going to say he deserves to, because last year I took a bath of questions from people when I said, Nobody deserves anything. I'm not going to change my stance on that. They deserve it when they hand you the trophy. They all know what the rules are. But are they worthy of it? Absolutely. Great guys. Great family man. He's someone that if I can't win the championship, my dad is not listening, my teammates are not paying attention, I'd like to see him do it. Doug is a great guy. Q. We have all these women now in NHRA. It's happened over the last 15, 20 years. Has it transformed the fan base? What have you noticed in the grandstands, the pits, et cetera? TONY SCHUMACHER: Wow, that's a really good question. I think Phoenix, the last couple races have been really, really good. But over the last bunch of years, I haven't really seen it change too much. I see the fans stand by the pits more. I mean, heck, who doesn't want to go over there and see a Force girl, Leah Pruett. They're great for the sport. That's a question for NHRA, the demographics of what the women in the sport have drawn. You have to remember, Shirley Muldowney, Johnson, we've had girls for a long time. The change would have been probably long before I started racing in '96 in Top Fuel. I'm not sure it's as drastic as you see fan change. You see it in NASCAR, a driver shows up as a woman, maybe change the demographics over there. We've been doing this a long time. We've had women win championships. We've had Angelle do it. Heck, Enders-Stevens now, what a great opportunity. Are we drawing more people? I think they're just going to be hanging around their pits. We're curious. It's something that is still pretty extreme, even though we've had Shirley Muldowney and other people doing it. There's definitely a lot more men. When you get ladies out here doing a great job, they're probably going to stand over there at the ropes. Q. The thing that has changed over the last six or seven years is you have so many now. You're saying basically you haven't noticed a gradual change in the grandstands? TONY SCHUMACHER: No, I haven't seen more kids or more young men because there's women. We have a lot of people. The thing is, I stand at the ropes and watch. We have a lot of fans. I wish we had more. I don't wish we had more so we all got paid more. That's nonsense. I wish we had more because I love our sport so much, I want our people to see it. If there's a way to get more people out there. We need to get kids out there, draw these young kids that have never seen a Chevelle, those old cars we all grew up on as guys in our mid 40s. We love that stuff. Drawing them out there, no matter what we got to do. I don't know if women are going to help. What I think is going to help, honestly, is the junior drag racing program. These kids are growing up racing with it in them. I think it's fantastic. Starting at age five these kids get to come out and race, and many women. That's going to draw them out their whole life. I think that's helping a little bit. You guys are all asking tough questions today (laughter). Q. You've had more intense moments than most human beings on this planet. What part of the preparation is most intense to you? TONY SCHUMACHER: You know, as far as the run itself, what's more intense, or the whole having to get your job done part? Q. Actually, all of that. In other words, those are intense moments that a lot of people don't get, the preparation, then the speed. TONY SCHUMACHER: I think the preparation, I'm not sure that I try harder than anybody else. Honestly in a professional category everyone tries. They're all good, prepared. They eat right, train, prepare. Hiring great people is very, very important. But who doesn't do that? So I live for that moment. I'm a God-fearing man, buddy. I get in that car and I don't pray to win, I pray for miracles. I've been a part of so many of them, so many of them. I hope every American in the world gets a chance to live those moments. Now, it's funny, when I pray that, I hope everyone gets to live that moment, bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, scary moment. I don't think everyone wants that. I think a lot of people are very content being a spectator. But I hope at some point they get to enjoy being a part of something so big with people capable of pulling off those moments, you know. You guys have all heard my speeches. I only enjoy those moments because I've surrounded myself with nine guys capable of that moment. Think about the run. Think about when we set the world record. When I looked out of my visor and saw my guys, they were fantastic guys capable of that moment in every way, shape and form. Kids that read these magazines, listen to what you guys are saying, listen to me closely, you have a chance to drive a car that goes 330 miles an hour, you may be blessed at that particular moment, make sure when you look out your visor, that nine guys are A-plus bad-to-the-bone dudes that are capable of that moment. If you look out of your visor and you see five of your high school idiot buddies looking at you, you've got a problem. Surround yourself with people capable of the fight and battle at all times. We win and lose by inches. Set world records on runs that absolutely matter. It's all about the people you surround yourself with. So start while you're young, surround yourself with people capable of passing good tests, studying for the correct test. Like I say in every speech, guys, don't get rid of the idiot. When you're having a bad day, it's nice to look over at him and say, I'm having a bad day, but at least I'm not the idiot. But don't bring him to the test when it matters. (Indiscernible) taught me that for 15 years now, surrounding yourself that people that are capable of the job are the way you get home. I'm pretty fortunate. 15 years with the Army, man, I've learned a lot. Q. Not everyone can go to a racetrack like Gainesville with four wins in their back pocket. Does that give you extra confidence or is that just great history? TONY SCHUMACHER: It's great history. Honestly, I have no better chance of winning Gainesville this weekend than I do of winning Atlanta, which I've never won before. We're going to win if we show up and are better than the rest of the field. I told everyone, last week I drove okay, I drove average at best. Drove my car straight, leaving the start line I was a bit off. I wasn't exactly sure why. We have to show up machine like, do our job. Gainesville, I'm pretty sure I haven't won all four with Mike. I'm not sure if I won any with Mike. It's a group effort. What they know, the data. Take all that data, add it to all the clutch parts, fuel parts that you have. All that stuff changes every year. Come Friday night after I make the first couple runs, I'll know if I have a good car going in. I love going to Gainesville just like I going to Sonoma, California. Any track you go to, the stands are so big and so full, that's where you want to go. You want to race in front of a big crowd because we love what we do and we want people to see it. SCOTT SMITH: Tony, your last win at Gainesville was the 2010 event. TONY SCHUMACHER: Nice, but I can say it's been a while. I guess there's people that have been longer. You have to be proud of the accomplishments we had and not look back on the ones we didn't make. SCOTT SMITH: That will conclude our call for today. Thank you, as always, Tony, for taking time out of your busy schedule. TONY SCHUMACHER: Guys, thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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