High-Speed Swamp Things in Florida
Written by Sheila Scarborough · March 18, 2007
Schumacher, Capps, Anderson and Stoffer take Gatornationals Wallys.
Don Schumacher Racing had a big day in Gainesville; although their superstars like Sampey and Scelzi didn’t win, some other familiar names did.
NHRA.com Sunday recap.
Current Top Fuel champion Tony Schumacher withstood his own imploding US Army dragster motor and a challenge from Larry Dixon to take the 36th win of his career (comparing favorably to the “Big Daddy”) with a 4.542 at 325.14 mph.
“This has always been a tough, tough race for us,” Schumacher said. “I mean, none of them are easy but this one has caused me fits over the years. I think I needed the last qualifying session in each of the last three years to make the field. I made it in Round 3 this time and I was shocked.
“It’s unbelievable to hear anything that you’ve done compared to Don Garlits but the reality is he raced in a different era with a lot less races so it doesn’t even compare. Maybe the number of wins I have is more but I don’t think I’m better than him by any stretch. Like I said, he raced in a different point in time and he was ‘the Man’ back then.”
Schumacher had to beat Melanie Troxel, Doug Kalitta and “Hot Rod” Fuller to make it to the finals.
In Funny Car, Ron Capps defended his Gatornationals championship from last year by laying down a 4.773 at 323.27 mph to beat a resurgent Phil Burkart (who was being whupped by Ashley Force until she bounced off of the wall.)
“That red-light from Phoenix has been in my head for three weeks and I’ve probably been miserable to be around,” said Capps. “It’s been a hard couple of weeks and it was in my head again this morning. I told [crew chief] ‘Ace’ [McCollough] that I wasn’t my normal self where I feel like I own the Tree and he gave me a pep talk and just calmed me down. He basically said that even if I went up there and did it again in Round 1 he’d still be behind me 100 percent.
“I realized I have such an incredible support system, from my wife and kids at home to the crew guys who give their lives to this team, to Ed,[Ace] they’re all behind me and that lifts me up. I can’t wait to celebrate with my team. This one’s huge.”
As for facing Burkart in the final, who was driving a car with limited sponsorship and whose car Capps’ brother Jon was testing here on Monday, Capps said, “I was thinking, if they beat us and I have to stand around and test all day and watch him testing that car, it was going to be a long night.
“This ranks up there with Indy (U.S. Nationals). I haven’t won Indy yet, and last year I told you this was as big as it could ever get for me. And until we get an Indy win this will remain the biggest in my career, for sure. And to do it twice, I still can’t believe it. A lot of cars were hitting the wall, a lot of Force’s cars and those are good cars. And they were having a hard time getting down these lanes. My job was made so easy by Ace and all the Brut Revolution crew guys.”
Kenny Bernstein made a run through the field once he made the show, finally falling to eventual winner Capps in the semifinals.
Greg Anderson continued his dominant performance in Pro Stock, beating Larry Morgan with a 6.577 at 211.06 mph.
“The numbers don’t tell the story of what a struggle this race was to win,” Anderson said. “This racetrack was very hard to tune to this weekend but Rob [Downing, crew chief] is the best and he got it figured out some how and he owned it. Of course, we had great horsepower, too, and it all came together.
“Winning the Gators is huge. This is one of the biggies and even though we had to guess on the tune-up for half of our runs, I guess we guessed better than the other guys and managed to win this thing for a second time.”
Pro Stock Motorcycle rider Karen Stoffer was on a Suzuki rampage, ripping through Angelle Sampey, Shawn Gann, Steve Johnson and Matt Smith to take the Wally (3 of her 4 elimination wins were holeshots.) She’s now the POWERAde points leader.
“This is so awesome I just can’t believe it happened,” Stoffer said. “We like a challenge but we sure don’t plan to barely qualify before we try to win a race. It all worked out and I’m thrilled. I absolutely love this track and to win in the home state of our team owners Doug and Debbie Johnson is special.
“We’re in our final year with the current Geico Motorcycle contract and to start off with a win and get them in the points lead is huge. Me and the Gecko are going out drinking tonight
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