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NATIONAL HOT ROD ASSOCIATION MEDIA CONFERENCE


September 9, 2015


Tony Schumacher


SCOTT SMITH: We are joined by Tony Schumacher, our No. 1 seed in Top Fuel. Tony is the driver of the U.S. Army dragster. He raced to the No. 1 seed on three wins, three runner-up finishes and three No. 1 qualifying positions. This is the second time he has been the No. 1 seed entering the playoffs. The last time was in 2008, which he went on to win the playoffs that season of the.
Tony, looking back on your season to date, the No. 1 qualifier, but as a whole how would you rate your season so far?
TONY SCHUMACHER: I've liked it. I've enjoyed it. You win races and you lose races. Like Beckman says, man, right timing is everything.
It's funny because we don't look like it's our right time. I mean, Brainerd wasn't very good. Indy was rough on us. But we had a good lead going into Brainerd. My crew chief was insistent on going out and trying some things he'd been longing to try for a while. We stayed after yesterday and tested. I think we're exactly where we need to be.
I said at the champ banquet last year, winning one is so difficult, but winning back-to-back is ludicrous. The teams are great, the drivers are doing a heck of a job, and all the cars are fast. No longer one car doing his job and everybody else chasing.
Monster battle. Worth the admission to every one of these six races.
SCOTT SMITH: Tony, we've seen teams get in streaks this season in Top Fuel. Can a team get on a streak even if it's just for three races and have a shot at the championship or does there need to be some good, consistent runs for all six events?
TONY SCHUMACHER: You know, both ways. We've done it both ways throughout the Countdown format. We've done it both ways before the Countdown format.
It's right time, right place, man. We could win all the races up till now. You still got to win the next six. You can have horrendous luck and you can just mess up. Seems to be when the pressure is high, some teams make mistakes, and some teams seem to excel.
I'm not going to say we're going to sit back and see what happens. We're going to force the issue, go out, make teams take shots at us. We're going to have to take a few shots ourselves. That's just the way it is. These are just incredible cars out there right now, man.
I don't mean just Indy. It was very hot out. But as we get to these last six and it starts to cool off again, you can do some throw-down runs, there's some pretty bad to the bone teams out there.
SCOTT SMITH: Is that where a racetrack like Maple Grove can be instrumental? Do you think a Top Fuel record is out? We look at that track as having historic runs. Is that 20 points in play?
TONY SCHUMACHER: I don't know, man. I would have thought so before Brainerd. Brainerd, the conditions were just so perfect. The conditions will have to be exact, not only do it one time Friday night, but do it twice.
I don't know that 20 points is going to make the championship. There's a lot of points out there. Six races, all the bonus points. If you go out there and just do your job from the get-go, stay ahead, be a machine, do what you got to do, you can win some things.
But, man, any mistake early, all of a sudden you can find yourself 30, 40, 50 points behind. It's a tough deal, man, when you're sitting back there. You start to turn knobs you're not exactly sure about because you're forcing the issue.
On the flipside of that, being in the No. 1 spot, sometimes you get a bit defensive and get defeated. What we have in our advantage is we've been here a numerous amount of times. We've done this. We've been on the front, we've been on the back. We know the pressure, we know how hard it is. We know what we expect from our team. We know how many days we'll have to test and how many extra hours we'll have to put in to win these things because we've done it before.
SCOTT SMITH: We'll take questions for Tony.

Q. You have star power as an incredible repeat champion and entertainer when the TV is on you, your hospitality, too. Can you comment on the stardust you've encountered along the way, the celebrities you've run into, and share whether there is any stardust, the joy you must get from spreading your stardust with so many fans.
TONY SCHUMACHER: I've met so many people along the way. When I was young, at a place called Dairymen's Country Club in Boulder Junction, Wisconsin, I saw the limelight from Rush. It was great.
All the world is a stage. We are merely players, performers and portrayers each and other's audience outside the gilded cage. I remember being 10 and hearing that. I didn't understand that. But it's funny. I'll be out at a race, celebrities will show up at the race. I'll want to go to a Metallica next week or a Kid Rock concert. They come out to the races. We enjoy what they do. They enjoy what we do. How great they are at their job. The reason we buy their albums, listen to their stuff, watch their movies. It's pretty special.
If you can share a little bit of that back, not just to them, they've already made it, but these kids, man, that are looking up. You've been to my speeches on Saturday. Centers of influence. I tell everybody, We invite centers of influence out, we have names for these people.
In reality, every single one of us has some kid watching. Whether we do things right or do things wrong, there's somebody watching. We got to be very aware of that. We owe it to them to do the right things. We owe it to their parents to make sure we're good role models. Make sure if they do see us as something special, that what they see us as is good. I think it's an important part of life.

Q. Do you practice with the microphone in the car?
TONY SCHUMACHER: Yeah, you've seen me do it. We set up on stage. Open-mic night. We all had a chill-out. If I was as good at guitar as I was racing, maybe I'd be in a rock band. I love that. I just really enjoy music. I don't want to be a movie star, this or that. But music is something. Sing in the car. We all have our music on before good races. It's all good.

Q. Tony, when you look back at your entire number of championships and everything, measure the competition that you are facing this year versus the competition of previous years.
TONY SCHUMACHER: Hmm, great question.
I think there's substantially more great people now. I think there's substantially more really good people now. You don't have a one Gary Scelzi, one Joe Amato, one Bernstein. You have seven, eight guys on race day that are going to be really hard to beat. I think it's more fun. You don't have that one guy, if you can get by him, the next couple might be easy.
I don't remember the last time I had an easy first round, ever, in the last maybe three years. We forget that the Bernsteins and those guys, Kenny is not there anymore, there's new guys in the making and they're doing a really good job.
Morgan Lucas can come out to a race after taking a few races or half a season off and win Indy. He's a good driver, has talent. Those guys show up and they make it exciting when we're racing them.
I think I appreciate it, I really do. Again, for the nine-millionth time, those trophies that sit on the shelf that have beat good drivers are the ones that are the most prevalent in the trophy case, the most difficult to earn.
I used to get 10 trophies a year, nine trophies a year, 15 one year. I got three right now. There's a reason for that. We didn't get worse. Others got better. Each one is more gratifying.
Those kids out there that hear my speeches, everyone doesn't get a participation trophy, we don't all win, I can prove it, hundreds of trophies I didn't get just for showing up, you know, because these guys are good at their job.
But what makes those things so enjoyable is the big letdowns like Indy where it hurts. We got beat. Now we better figure it out. So we stay and we test. Kids have to understand that. People have to get it. We don't all win, we don't all get jobs. We don't all get paid the same. It's not life. It's not how it works. You can't do that. It's about winning and surrounding yourself with people capable of that moment.
Do I think it's going to be easy this year? No. These last six races will be the most difficult six races we've ever faced.

Q. It's obvious you've grown as a driver from year to year to year. At what point in your life did you discover that it felt just as good to deliver messages to kids?
TONY SCHUMACHER: I've done 15 years for the Army of speeches to kids. I've had so many kids and fathers and mothers come up and go, My kid was a C student last year, he gets As now. He heard you, he listened. It's not tons of kids, but a few. They come up and say...
Every kid has it in them to be good. They get other things they're busy with.
I see it in my kids, you know. I see my son who has a brilliant mind. He's definitely got mom's mind. He's just got other things that entertain him. If he could just stay focused...
I watch it happen. We as centers of influence need those kids to understand that. We need to go in a better direction than we're going right now.
Everybody wins. We've shoved that down their throat too many years. Now we've got to fix it. I think at some point I'm in that position where I may get some boos when I say that from some people during my speeches, but most everybody claps. There's always going to be those people that think we should all be even, but it's not true, and it's never going to be true.

Q. My son who is doing some work on the NASCAR side said, Dad, what NHRA driver do you think would be best to step right into a winning role in a NASCAR racecar? I said, Tony Schumacher, without a doubt. The reason I said that is because when it comes to pressure situations, you turn into someone between a human and a robot. You just deliver in those situations. Now, with that said, behind the scenes, is there a time you ever get nervous, show that you're human?
TONY SCHUMACHER: Definitely. For sure. I get nervous that I'm not going to be good enough. Everybody does. I think it's what makes you practice. It's what makes you eat healthy, work out. The fear of not being good, you know.
I appreciate that a thousand percent, but I think what would make me a NASCAR driver or any other kind is the fact that I'm humble enough to listen. I do not think I can go over there and whip their butts. Those guys are great at what they do. I do, however, think I'm trainable. Kids need to hear that.
Don't always walk around thinking you're the greatest. I learn stuff every day. I have people do stuff against me racing that teaches me something. Have that open mind. I think the advantage I'd have, flying a plane, doesn't matter, I would sit down, listen, learn, take notes, ultimately listen to people who know what they're doing so I could become good at that job.
My favorite expression has always been, Overprepare, then go with the flow. You overprepare for a school test, you get an A because you're prepared for it. Show up for that test having studied nothing at all, see how nervous you are. That's a different nerve. You know you're beat.
Mine nerve comes from knowing I prepared and knowing I left nothing on the tables. Last thing I want to do is get to Indy and get in the finals and get beat by a hole shot. I'm not saying a hole shot like Robert Hight when he had a good light, but a great light. Can you change those numbers by where you're staged.
I mean actually being late where you know you had it, you could have won it, and you didn't do it because you messed up.
We're nervous about it. I am human. We all practice to eliminate those risks, but we're still human, man. We can still make mistakes.
I think train, prepare, get ready so you can eliminate the majority of them.

Q. I guess it was 1998, your dad blames you for making DSR the monster it is today because you drug him back out here. There's talk of a fourth Top Fuel team over at DSR. Does that kind of stuff make you happy or does it make you say, Oh, great, yet another assassin in my own camp?
TONY SCHUMACHER: I don't care. I mean, it's racing. We have a great time doing it.
What I don't like is when I'm asked to teach someone how to drive good and then they beat me. It doesn't pay my bills. In reality I love the fight.
Man, when I went to St. John's Military School in Delafield, Wisconsin, you walked by this building, you saluted every time, a big building, all four sides they have something different. One side just said, Play the game. I always remembered that. If you enjoy the game itself, not the money or the trophy, but the game itself, the game, you're going to enjoy life a whole lot more.
I didn't like getting beat in Indy, but I shook Langdon's hand because he beat me at the game. It was uncomfortable, and I didn't smile. I can get through that. I can make it look like I can handle it. It doesn't make me happy, but I enjoy the fight. I love that part of it.
I think of that sign. I have it on my phone. I took a picture of it. Went back there a few years ago, did a speech for them. I'll remember that, Play the game. If that's where your heart lies, you can be good at anything. It's always a battle, it's always a fight, it's always enjoyable.
The outcome is incredible when you win it, but it's only incredible because you've lost some of them. If you won every one of them, how much fun would it be, if you won every single game all the time, you'd never have that heartbreak, never have the drive to go out and win. It wouldn't make sense.

Q. You said this is the most difficult competition field that you've ever faced. Do you see this could potentially come down to the final round at the end of the season?
TONY SCHUMACHER: Absolutely. Could it? I hope it doesn't. Like Beckman says, I hope it doesn't at all. I hope we go out and dominate. But I'm not stupid. It probably will. That's why they designed it, to keep people watching TV till the last moment.
Look at Indy, man. I had to sit and watch Antron. That was the first time I had to watch someone else. If Antron would have won that round, he would have taken over the lead. I don't remember the last time it's come down to that. It's always been me in the seat. If I win, I'm the champ. I've never had to sit back and watch.
That's a difficult thing to do because you want to have some class. You don't want to hope Antron gets beat. That's not how you want to win stuff. So you find yourself in kind of a peculiar spot.
I think it's going to be fantastic. I think if we can keep the stands full, like every driver dreams of, because we don't want to show up and race with no one there. We're going to give them a great show. The more people that come and see great shows, the bigger our sport will get. It's a phenomenal sport. It's the best on the planet. We need people to come out and see it.
SCOTT SMITH: Tony, thank you very much for your time today.
TONY SCHUMACHER: Absolutely. We'll see you guys in a couple days.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports




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