Eight-time Top Fuel world champion Tony Schumacher will showcase a new logo on his 12,000 horsepower Leatherwood Distillery dragster when the 2024 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season kicks off this weekend with the NHRA Gatornationals in Gainesville, Florida. CraftPoint Concepts, an industry leader in commercial casework, joins Joe Maynard’s JCM Racing team as an associate partner to Schumacher, who returns to Gainesville Raceway as a class leader with five wins at the historic facility.
CraftPoint Concepts, which boasts NSF and UL certifications, specializes in the engineering and construction of custom-designed commercial kitchens, waiting rooms, locker rooms, and dining spaces, among others. While in the initial planning phase for one of his most recent business ventures, Shelby’s Trio, an innovative three-story dining concept in Clarksville, Tennessee, Maynard turned to CraftPoint Concepts for a ‘soup to nuts’ approach to his caseworking needs. By utilizing CraftPoint Concepts, Maynard can rest easy knowing that Shelby’s Trio is outfitted with equipment-integrated casework that has been specifically constructed for the high-traffic, high-use that is to be expected in a food service environment.
“Most in the NHRA space know me as a team owner but the reality is, I have my hand in a lot of different businesses outside of racing,” Maynard said. “We opened Shelby’s Trio last March. It was a dream of my late wife, Cathi, to open a restaurant and she could think of no better place to do that than Clarksville. We came up with a concept that we felt would best serve the patrons of our community by providing three distinct dining establishments. The first floor features Joe’s Garage, an American eatery with muscle cars on display in the type of environment where you’d want to take your family. The second floor is Trattoria di Cat, an elevated dining Italian restaurant, and the third floor features Skyline 500, the very first rooftop bar in Clarksville. Needless to say, there’s a lot going on at Shelby’s Trio, and we needed to know that our kitchens and bar areas would be outfitted to meet the needs of a bustling, fast-paced environment.
“CraftPoint Concepts drew up the layout of our kitchens, all of which were designed to maximize the efficiency of our back-of-the-house team and flow of the kitchen. The actual caseworking itself was built to withstand moisture and damage from any liquids or grease, and everything has been built out with consideration to the equipment we have. All of this alleviates the likeliness of any sort of failure. Having to replace equipment could cripple a business for weeks or months. I have peace of mind knowing that we were outfitted to avoid that from the get-go. CraftPoint Concepts provides custom millwork on a national scale. I would highly encourage any business owner who requires caseworking in their establishment to look into using CraftPoint.”
For its work at Shelby’s Trio, CraftPoint Concepts was awarded the prestigious Award of Excellence by the National Architectural Woodwork Institute in July 2023 and was published in the institute’s quarterly journal last summer.
Schumacher’s Top Fueler will feature CraftPoint Concepts branding on the rear wing, and when his JCM Racing teammate Ida Zetterström debuts on the NHRA circuit later this summer, her car will also carry the CraftPoint logo.
With their headquarters located in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, a mere 20 miles from Reading, the CraftPoint Concepts team is looking forward to visiting Maple Grove Raceway for the Pep Boys NHRA Nationals in September where they will utilize the JCM Racing Champions’ Club, a 3,200-square foot pit-side hospitality pavilion which sits adjacent to Schumacher’s race pit, to entertain guests and clients.
This story was originally published on March 6, 2024. 
