It’s no secret that Tony Schumacher and the SCAG Power Equipment Top Fuel team struggled to get their footing in the earlier part of the 2023 NHRA Camping World Series season, but by the time the new team led by Mike ‘Zippy’ Neff and Jon Shaffer reached the back half of the year, they started to see the fruits of their labor pay off. The recent uptick in performance led to two semifinal finishes and a quarterfinal appearance for the SCAG team during the six-race playoffs, and helped to propel Schumacher to his 22nd top 10 finish.
At the In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals, the last event of the season, Schumacher qualified his machine 11th on the strength of his 3.703-second pass, which he clocked during the second qualifying session. Despite the strong Q2 run, the team faced traction issues throughout the remaining qualifying rounds and found themselves facing championship contender Leah Pruett as their first-round competitor. While there weren’t any title implications on the line for the eight-time Top Fuel world champ this time around, he had the opportunity to play spoiler for Pruett who was chasing her first title. Unfortunately, Schumacher’s traction issues continued into eliminations on Sunday morning, and he was sidelined after the first round when his machine smoked the tires while Pruett made a clean pass to advance.
“That was an unfortunate round for us, but fortunate for her,” said Schumacher, a six-time winner at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip in Pomona, Calif. “We didn’t run well first round, but we haven’t really performed all weekend long. So, we put ourselves in the spot to get beat and I guess we earned what we got. So, we’ll go out, re-group, and spend the off-season testing, and we’re looking forward to coming back strong in 2024.”
The 2023 NHRA season will go down in the books as a 10th-place finish for Schumacher, who will be recognized alongside his fellow top 10 competitors on Monday night at the NHRA Awards Ceremony in Pechanga, Calif.
This story was originally published on November 13, 2023. 
