|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NATIONAL HOT ROD ASSOCIATION MEDIA CONFERENCEJanuary 28, 2015Tony SchumacherTHE MODERATOR: Next up we have Tony Schumacher, driver of the U.S. Army Top Fuel dragster. Schumacher enters the season as an eight‑time Top Fuel world champion, and during the coming season one of the goals that Tony might have is to move up on the all‑time win list. He has 77 wins, which is fourth on the list, trailing Bob Glidden, Warren Johnson and then leader John Force. Tony, kind of talk about the upcoming season. Dave kind of hit upon it, that when you have that No.1 on the side of your car, everybody is looking to knock you down a peg when you pull into Pomona. Does that give you, and you've obviously been here before, but does that give you and your team a little added step as you head into the opening event? TONY SCHUMACHER: You know, I wish I could say yes, honestly, but I can't remember the last time I didn't try, you know? I think about that all the time. I go, oh, man, they're going to be really gunning for us, and then I go, wait a minute, they're always gunning for us. We had the No.7 on our car last year and the quickest runs in the history of last season were against me, and it didn't have the No.1 on the side of the car. I think that Army car is so cool, people love racing it. It's just awesome. It's a great car and great team that's been successful and done a lot over the years, so it's always a target. That's the way it is. I'm glad to be the driver. I'm glad to sit in the seat. I enjoy it mostly because I like to know that the guy racing me finds it worthy to try hard, and it's cool. I think we're just proud to have the No.1 on the car, not that we've got to try harder or do this or do that, but we're happy that the year ended like it did, and grateful for the same guys returning back and doing the same jobs, and we're getting better and stronger every day. Q. Talk a little bit about the required intensity it takes to win the championship, one championship, and let alone come back and have the intensity to win eight. TONY SCHUMACHER: You know, I sit in the car a lot of times and think, why do I do this; this is so intense. Before a big run that you have to be really great at, sometimes you sit in the car and you just think, this is nuts. This is just so much pressure. And what I'm so happy to be able to do is look back on all the times that it's been so difficult and how we've pulled it off. It makes it so much easier to get through those moments, because there was a time where it was deer in the headlights. It was so big, you thought, there's no way. And then you win a few of those and your team pulls off these miracles, and you start to believe. Some of you guys actually joke about it. I believe in stuff that doesn't seem possible. Well, I do. The funny thing is I've kind of lived a lot of those moments that have made it easy to believe. That run in '06 that was physically impossible. I'm not sure we even knew what was‑‑ we thought, oh, well, there's a snowball's chance, but really? Are we really going to be able to do this? And then you pull it off and you start to think, wow, this is absolutely possible. World records are broken all the time because it's never been done before. I like those moments. I think, and I've said this in many, many press conferences. If you want to see me get beat, come to a race where it's not important because we drop our guard a little bit, and that happens. But we're good when it's important. We're good when it's a must, and that's just how our team is. Q. Do you think you could ever be able to teach all that to anyone? TONY SCHUMACHER: Well, first of all, I don't want to because then they beat me. I think I've taught a couple people too much already. It's just the way it is. I'm one of those dumb guys where people always say, I taught him everything he knows but not everything I know. I don't stop at that, I kind of teach them, and then I think to myself and how our team has always been, we race; you know everything I know and now we race. Q. U.S. Army, all about leadership, they've been your sponsor for a long time, 77 wins. Here we are getting ready for the 2015 season, another go‑around in the NHRA Mello Yello drag racing series. They just introduced Baptism by Nitro, their new campaign, encouraging fans to bring new fans. If you were going to show leadership with the sport as the winningest driver in the history of Top Fuel, the most champions, what would you do or bring to the table? What are you going to try to do this year to continue to elevate this sport in the mainstream media world? It's Super Bowl week, they've got their radio row going on right now, and we've got a sport that we all agree is the coolest, it's the best, it's the most amazing, it's a spectacle. You are the winningest driver in Top Fuel. What can you do to help us all elevate this thing? TONY SCHUMACHER: I think it's just personal attention. Like we can blow it up in the media, and we do. We do our best. But you've got to be at the ropes and you've got to be telling people to bring it, and you've got to be out there a lot, because it is the greatest sport in the world. I am the perfect person to ask. I have asked generals, or esteemed generals be asked to come out, and they get the typical, oh, man, but it's a drag race. They picture James Dean, a pack of cigarettes and a cool car, and they don't picture what it is, and they get out for the first time, and it's an oh, my. That is insane. I saw that on Facebook. That's exactly what that post is, man. Get people out that have never been there. It is our most difficult thing because we don't have the marketing dollars NASCAR has to go out and do all the ad campaigns to get people out, so it's up to the drivers. It's up to the teams to really push. And when we're in the neighborhood like I do, I get in early, I get into Pomona on Tuesday, I'll get in on Tuesday, we won't run until Friday, and I'll spend Wednesday doing media, I'll spend Thursday doing media, and those days are critical, but everyone doesn't do that. We need to expand that. We need to get the people out there beating the ground, man. You've got to get people to come out the first time. Very, very, very seldom, I don't even hear it, almost never do you hear someone say that was the greatest day of my life, I'm never coming back. They all love it. The generals that come out for the first time, when they're done, they go, I never expected it to be simply amazing. I just pictured something different and never expected it to be this big, never expected them to be that fast, this professional, and so great for kids. It's a great kids' sport. Kids come out and they're in awe of not the car going fast; that's always a no‑brainer, but to watch the men work on the cars and women. These guys do such a great job that these young kids are so impressionable get to watch this thing and go, you mean, I can do something great like that? It gives them a little hope. Right now they're in school, they're just working hard and they don't understand goals yet. Their goals are small and they're simple. Let them see that these people are doing simply miraculous things as a team. I think the more kids we bring out, the quicker it spreads. Q. What was your reaction when you got the news about the Al‑Anabi team in terms of its effect on just sort of the Top Fuel ranks, and also have you had a chance to talk to Alan about what happened? TONY SCHUMACHER: I have not talked to Alan, and honestly I was bummed. I liked having Balooshi and Langdon out there, and I hope they still come and I hope the team finds something else. But you just hate that late notice. I've been there before. I've been there when you find out something last minute is changing. It's terrible. It's not good for the sport. Not only do we need more cars, but we can't in any way afford to lose any of them, and not the caliber of crew that those guys are. Alan Johnson is an outstanding crew chief with great drivers, and they had the money capable of going out and running against great teams. I was bummed. It made for a great battle. It was many championships racing each other, and I thought it was a spectacular way for fans to get to see just a monumental battle. I hope they find something soon and get it worked out and get out there soon. Q. We just had Dave Connolly on talking about his transition to Top Fuel. How difficult is that task going to be for him? He's taking a very humble approach it seems, and maybe that's the best way to go, huh? TONY SCHUMACHER: It's the only way to go. Once you get in those cars you could be‑‑ you can think you're the coolest guy in the world. They start up the cars and all that goes out the window, and the funny thing is he does have a great leader. He's got Larry Dixon and Bob Vandergriff as a team owner who's made so many laps, but when the car starts and they step away, you are 100 percent alone, and that's the humbling part. There's no one that can help you. My first car I started a Top Fuel car, I was in Denver, Colorado, and after they started it I looked around, I'm sitting in this car buckled in, and there wasn't one guy that's ever driven a car around me. I could see the crew chief leaning forward and it looked like he gave me a thumbs up and said good luck, but you can't hear, and you're thinking to yourself, oh, my, this is insane, because you are going to hit the gas and go over 100 miles an hour in under one second, and there's no way to practice it. I think he's a great driver. I think Vandergriff made an excellent choice, but it's going to take him time to get used to a Top Fuel car, the difference in staging. There's so much that's different. But he understands how to race. He's got the perfect attitude, and he's a good athlete. All those things are going to play right into it, and he'll go out and make some laps and he'll get used to it and become a great driver like everyone expects. That's why Bob put him in the car. Q. As a follow‑up, you very likely could tie or pass Bob Glidden on the all‑time win list this year. I'm just wondering how numbers conscious you are of things of that nature where you stand on the all‑time list. TONY SCHUMACHER: I honestly had no idea until I heard you guys announce it. And it is not my goal. My goal is to go out and win as many races as I can every year each and every time. At the end of my career I'll look back on the wins and I'll appreciate the sacrifice that we all made to get those wins and be proud of those moments. Things were different when Bob Glidden raced. It was different. There were different amounts of races per year. So comparing apples to apples is really impossible. People try to do that with Big Daddy Don Garlits, too, in Indy wins. It's a difficult thing to relate. Drivers are drivers. Now, back then they drove, worked on cars. It was so different. For me to sit back and try to compare myself to anyone, I'll let you guys do that. That's your job as the media. You can compare. You can make up those things and I'll read them, but I honestly‑‑ at the end of my career I hope I have 500 wins. Right now I'm just trying to get No.78, I think. Q. You won your championship with the regular points system, like whoever gets the most at the end of the season wins. You've done it in the Countdown now, and now with NHRA making it one and a half points for the U.S. Nationals, I just wanted to see what was your reaction to that points change. TONY SCHUMACHER: I was asked that yesterday for the first time. Indy is supposed to be bigger. It's the big go. It's supposed to be the biggest race. It has more money, more people show up to win it, and it should come with more points. I think most people always felt that. Just to have it as just another race never made sense. Being an important race for so many cars that can come in and change the position they go into the Countdown, I think it's really cool. I almost wish it was double points. I've won it enough times where it would have always helped me. But take that out and still, for everybody, because we're going into a race now where it's‑‑ we haven't even started to qualify yet. All things being even I still wish it was a lot more points. I think it makes the sport bigger, makes it more important and starts to do what it needs to do at Indy. Q. Are you a fan of the Countdown system then like when they brought that in? Do you think that that has accomplished what was hoped for? TONY SCHUMACHER: I go back and forth on it, honestly. The last year before the Countdown we won the championship by setting a world record on the last run of the year. If they could do that every year, they'd be sold‑out shows. The Countdown was really put in effect to keep people watching at the end of the year when most of the time by Reading, Pennsylvania, someone had the championship locked up in the old way and people didn't even need to see it. Is it doing what it's supposed to do? I haven't seen the numbers, but I would assume it's probably a good call, if not NASCAR would have backed out of it a long time ago, and I think NHRA has got a job to do. They've got to look at each way and maybe they can fine‑tune it, and I don't know better ways, but they've got a marketing department and they can come up with ideas that are great, and we look and we listen, and if we can evolve it even more and listen to ideas and make it better, that's what we're going to do. We are entertainment. That's what it is. We show up and we have to win and it's our job, but we're entertainment. We're competing with a lot of other companies doing the same thing, and we just have to make it better for the fans in any way we can. Better for the fans, more exciting for them at the end of the year when it's important. At the end of the day we have to sell commercials, TV slots. It's what we do. Let's keep it going. Now, if they reverted back, or my crew chief brought it up last year and I thought it was fantastic, he said, you know, once you get into the Countdown, when you qualify you're the No.1 pick, you get to walk up and choose who you race. There's other ideas out there that are floating out there. I thought that was great. You walk up, if I'm No.1 going into the last race and the No.6 guy is Kalitta and he needs to beat me to be the champ he can walk up if he's the qualifier and choose me. There's ideas. That being said, it's going to make it so confusing for the fan who walks up to understand who's racing who. You wouldn't know until Sunday morning. But we'll just keep working on it, man. Do you like it? Q. I think it works out pretty well. I kind of go back and forth and I can understand when some guys might get frustrated with it and others not. Keeps you alive if you're No.10, right? TONY SCHUMACHER: Exactly, exactly. It gives you that shot. There was a time where you had to be one, two or three near the end, or you had no chance. Now you can come in at 10th. We saw Robert Hight do it and win the championship. Q. In light of the Al‑Anabi situation, you guys have had a tremendous relationship with the Army. There's been other teams in motorsport that have been cut back by the military. Are you guys pretty set with the Army? What's your future with the Army? TONY SCHUMACHER: I think it's fantastic. To be sitting here right now with the Army on the side of the car after all the controversy in the past few years especially is spectacular. It just goes to show how successful this Army program is, and it's not just because we go out and win. It is a recruiting tool. It's what we do. And when the controversy comes up, we can lay the numbers out that says, look, this is NHRA. Every fan has a pit pass. Here's the numbers we provide. Nothing in the history for recruiting has ever been this successful, and it tends to quiet those situations down. You know, we've lasted a long, long time, and it's because we work extra hard to do it. We go above and beyond. We do what the Army does. We go above and beyond. We do what we have to do to make sure the program succeeds. I'm glad to represent people like your son and his fellow soldiers. It's a great accomplishment and it's a great, long partnership that we've had. Q. All the generals that you've had there in your pits, what have been some of the most notable remarks they've made because you said they're pretty‑‑ they get there thinking one thing and leave with a whole different idea. TONY SCHUMACHER: General Q is the vice chief of staff. His first race was in Reading, Pennsylvania. I had just crashed in Memphis and had a couple fractured ribs, a sprained knee, and in Reading he was at the finish line, the car shook in the final round, I pedaled it, beat Jim Head, it was still a quarter mile, no parachutes, buried it in the sand trap.  I don't know how many negative Gs, but it was more than enough, my chest was hurting, I climbed out of the car, and he comes running through the beaches down there in the sand trap, and he is a big man, six foot whatever big, and grabbed me, picked me up and was throwing me around, I have never seen anything like that in my life. It was absolutely spectacular. Squeezed me like a rag doll, almost broke my other ribs, but just awesome moments where you get these guys and they're like a kid in a candy store. They're seeing massive power. The Army car, man. These are guys who get it. They understand the power, the sacrifice, the work, the blood, sweat and tears, and to see them with a smile on their face, knowing how much work they have to do the next day. These are generals. They're running our country and they're defending lots and lots of lives and doing what they have to do. To give them a little relief for a few minutes and hear their excitement is spectacular. Q. I already know who you want to win every race day at an NHRA event, so a question in a little bit different direction: Seattle or New England? TONY SCHUMACHER: New England. Q. And why? TONY SCHUMACHER: I have more friends there. Isn't that funny? It's a new track, it's grass‑roots. I've won Seattle a lot of times. It is an important race. The Western Swing is kind of crunch time before going to the Countdown, but New England is fun, man. It reminds me of like Great Lakes Dragway in Union Grove, Wisconsin. Fans are jam‑packed in, and it's old school racing. I like being there. Q. Super Bowl, Seattle or New England? TONY SCHUMACHER: New England and only because of my son. He loves the Patriots, and that's just the way it is.  He's a Packers fan, but he can convert when the Packers get beat. I've got to go with my kids, man. I'm gone way too much to oppose them when I'm home. Q. You kind of started off the call and briefly talked about your test session. Can you kind of expound upon that, and how the testing down in South Florida went for your Army team? TONY SCHUMACHER: It went like it always goes. I probably knocked out eight fillings, I shook six runs. I'm happy as can be because, and there's always that because, that track is so good that if you can get the car down that racetrack, you're going to Pomona to smoke the tires. There's no other cars there. It's not prepared by NHRA. It's just super tight. You've got to be so aggressive to get the car to move that when you get to the next race, no matter where it is, you don't stand a chance using that tune‑up. I'm fine with it. Great new car. It's a beautiful car. We know we can go to Pomona and run fast. We know we can go down the racetrack. We know how to do it. We have the combinations. And when we show up to test, we actually show up to test, stuff that we've never had before, way off, distant stuff that we're going to use later in the year. It's fine. We have the parts and the pieces‑‑ at least when I was a runner‑up in Pomona, we know how to do that, so we'll go fast at the beginning of the year, and we also know that winning the first 10 races doesn't win you the championship, so we've got a long year of getting stuff together for the end of the year because it's how the rules are set up, it's how we're supposed to do it, we're supposed to win at the end, but being in the correct position to do that, you don't want to be coming in 10th. Yes, Robert Hight did it, but it's such a longshot. You want to be in those top couple and really hit it hard in the Countdown. Q. Can we get you to change your mind about the Super Bowl? TONY SCHUMACHER: I love football. I love the game, and honestly, when I set down I don't always have a favorite. I just choose what my kids like so I can watch it. I want it to be great. Nobody wants to watch a blowout mess. We want to see it be a great contest. That's it. That's all we want. THE MODERATOR: Tony, thank you for your time and we look forward to seeing you as you defend your championship once we begin in Pomona next weekend. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|