Two-time NHRA Sonoma Nationals Top Fuel event champion Tony Schumacher will need to wait another year to take his third Sonoma Raceway win, as the eight-time NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series world champion bowed out in the first round of eliminations Sunday morning at the 36th running of the Sonoma Nationals. Schumacher in his Leatherwood Distillery Top Fuel dragster went up in smoke, sending the JCM Racing team home early from the second race of the abbreviated Western Swing. With a win and two runner-up finishes in the first 12 races of the season, Schumacher leaves Sonoma sixth in the points standings.
Schumacher’s first qualifying attempt ended with tire haze on the top end, but he improved slightly with a 3.907-second pass in the second session to end the day in the No. 11 spot. He really improved in the third session on Saturday, laying down a 3.733 E.T. at 323.97 mph to move up one spot. Schumacher overpowered the track in the final qualifying session and locked in the No. 10 position for Sunday eliminations.
On race day, Schumacher’s traction troubles resumed in his first-round match with Justin Ashley. He hit the throttle pedal and drove into tire smoke shortly after, coasting across the finish line in 8.495 seconds while Ashley made a full pull in the opposite lane to move on.
“Man, that one hurts,” Schumacher said. “I love this place. That car didn’t go three feet before it smoked the tires. But we’re still digging. This is a right time, right place thing. You can have a car that makes a great run and you get beat on a holeshot. You can smoke the tires. You can find 1,000 different ways to lose. It’s difficult to pick up the few, few ways there are to win. What it starts from is hard work, and I can tell you that my guys are working harder than any team out here, so it’ll come in time. But we need to get it together because this Countdown is coming up fast.”
Next time JCM Racing hits the track, they’ll do so as a two-car team when 2023 FIA European Top Fuel champion Ida Zetterström makes her NHRA debut at the NHRA Brainerd Nationals, Aug. 16-18, at Brainerd International Raceway in Brainerd, Minnesota.
This story was originally published on July 29, 2024. 
