The following are excerpts from a teleconference featuring NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series drivers Eddie Krawiec (Pro Stock Motorcycle), Erica Enders (Pro Stock), Jack Beckman (Funny Car), and Tony Schumacher (Top Fuel).
MODERATOR: Thank you for joining us for today’s teleconference. We’ll start our call today with Eddie Krawiec. Eddie is the rider of the Screamin’ Eagle Vance & Hines Harley Davidson. He enters the Mello Yello Countdown to the Championship with three wins, three runner-up finishes, and two No. 1 qualifying positions. He has led the points since the second event of the season. Eddie, looking back at your season to date what you have gone through to date, are you satisfied with what happened so far?
EDDIE KRAWIEC: Yeah, I would definitely say we started out the year really well, going to three final rounds. I was plagued by a couple parts failures that really in my eyes kept me from getting a few more wins this season. As we went on into the middle part of the season, early on, we struggled a little bit with our whole entire bike setup, fuel setup. With the new current switch to Sunoco Race Fuels, it took us a while to learn what our motorcycle is like. Gradually worked towards getting the right combination at the right time. Denver for us, we turned the corner. We didn’t do too well in Chicago, Norwalk. Had some second-round losses. Wound up winning Denver, Sonoma and Brainerd. Also the NHRA Pro Bike Battle. So it’s definitely been a great year as of now. I’d like to keep the roll going.
MODERATOR: You talk about the wins and early losses. When we get into the six races, how important is it to get those early losses just out of the way and really be able to go as many rounds as possible?
EDDIE KRAWIEC: Well, I’d say that’s the key to the championship. I don’t necessarily believe winning races guarantees anything. The reason why I say that, I’m probably one of few to ever do it, but winning a championship without ever winning a race, I proved that you need to be consistent. Doing that back in ’08, it was kind of an odd feeling as I explained years ago. You don’t win any races, but to win a championship is kind of odd. That’s the great thing about the Countdown. It really resets everybody back to equal. So whether you have the most dominant front half of the year, it doesn’t really matter. Once you hit Charlotte, it changes. It’s a whole different ballgame. It’s now who can be the most consistent through the final six races.
I think the key is semifinal- and final-round appearances. You don’t want to go out early. You can’t afford any second-round losses. It’s definitely very important and key to be consistently going rounds at every race.
Q. As a former champion, do you expect this time to be the same or a little bit different for you and your team?
EDDIE KRAWIEC: I think it definitely gives you a little experience having won championships. I have a great team behind me. Vance & Hines and Harley Davidson have been together for 14 years now. I’ve been fortunate to be a part of it since 2007. They taught me a lot since I’ve been here. I think that’s where having the experience of going into the Countdown, understanding what you have to do. Sometimes it doesn’t mean going to a race changing your whole setup because you may not be the fastest bike there. I think it means more having a consistent motorcycle and keeping a good stride going through the Countdown. I would say yes it’s an advantage having been there before and done that. I feel I’m a very good performer under pressure. I’m looking forward to the battle.
Q. Indy this past weekend, might not have been the results you and your teammate were looking for. Does any of that give you cause or concern going into Charlotte or do you put that behind you and just look ahead?
EDDIE KRAWIEC: Not at all. You know, I think when you look at it, both rounds that Andrew and I lost in the second round, races I should say, were great drag races. When you look at the time slips, that’s the time slip you look at and say, I was on the losing end of a great drag race.
I ran into Chip Ellis. That was due to not qualifying well. The reason I didn’t qualify well with my bike is we were trying a couple different things. We had the luxury of having a good enough points lead that I wasn’t going to lose first. I just had to keep consistent. So it was a great opportunity to try some stuff. We put my bike back to the way we usually run it for Monday. I came out of the box and ran really well. First round, I was low ET of the round. Second round, just spun a little bit due to the really hot conditions. But overall I feel it was a very successful weekend. The reason why I say that is we didn’t get a chance all year, we had phenomenal weather at every race we’ve gone to, we haven’t seen hot, humid conditions. We did this weekend here at Indy, so it allowed us to I think figure out a tune-up and get a baseline in case we run into any hotter tracks over the next two or three races.
Q. Very short list of people that have won the championship without winning a race during the season. With all the competition really stepping up, you have had a great season so far, but the Suzuki’s have stepped up. Does it motivate you more going into the rest of the season to really perform well?
EDDIE KRAWIEC: Absolutely. You know, the years, of I would say, Pro Stock Motorcycle where you have a 10th on the field is no longer. When you look at every Mello Yello category out there, Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock Car, including Pro Stock Motorcycle, we’re all packed pretty tight, especially from 12 on to No. 1. When you look at the top 12 from the first day of qualifying, it’s a group. Everybody is together by only a few hundredths or thousandths in some categories. I think it really makes the driver have to step up their program and really be on their game because we know there are no gimmes in drag racing. We don’t have 500 miles to get it right, we have 1320 feet to get it right every single time. For us, the driver, there’s a lot of things that equate into that one-quarter-mile run. That’s the driver, that’s the crew, everybody standing behind you, and everything in general to really make sure that all things come together.
Q. What do you and your team do over the next four to seven days to ensure that you’re fully prepared for the final races of the season?
EDDIE KRAWIEC: Well, we all go on vacation (laughter). No. Really, I mean, what we did, and I’ll tell you, right after Indy, we came back to the shop, we tore our bikes down to bare frames right now. We’re going through them 100%. We know these next six races for us, starting on September 18th in Charlotte, are the six most important races of the season. This is where having a little bit of an extra budget, everything really comes into it. We’re fortunate to have a great partnership with Harley Davidson and all the other people that help support us. They make sure we’re able to replace all the parts that could be worn out or could become a problem to our motorcycles. We’re changing a lot of little things. We have six engines total that we keep between Andrew and I, seven to be exact, but one stays in the shop. They’re all going to be fresh. We’re going to go into a three-race swing, then we’re on a week, off a week, on a week, off a week. It’s very demanding. The nice thing about this year’s schedule I like is we don’t have four in a row. We actually have three in a row. I think that helps definitely give you a little extra time to do some maintenance. We go through, replace everything, make sure our bikes are 100%.
Q. What you said about liking the fact you have three in a row versus four in a row, how demanding is it when you race week after week after week after week?
EDDIE KRAWIEC: That’s a good question. It could depend on whether you’re winning them all or losing them all. You know, really when you’re on a roll, you’re moving forward, you have that forward momentum, it’s definitely a good thing, I believe. It doesn’t allow people to really start regrouping, is the way I’d like to put it. It’s a good thing to have a little bit of a break no matter what because it lets you still maintenance your stuff. It’s a lot of work and a lot of effort. The drivers get patted on the back for everything we do, for races that we win. Ultimately it’s the crew and everybody that stands behind us that makes it possible for us to go down the track as a driver. There’s a lot of things that go into it and a lot of maintenance that happens.
Q. Continuing on the schedule theme. It’s been jumbled up this year, tracks have been moved around, specifically the Motorplex is number four where it was number two. Does that go into your pre-Countdown planning going to a track like that, all concrete, et cetera?
EDDIE KRAWIEC: You know, we do. We have to run our motorcycle different just about everywhere we go. The thing I really like about it is you never know what type of weather you’re going to get in Dallas. There’s years it’s been hot, humid, 100 degrees. There’s been other years it’s been 70 and beautiful. You never know what you’re going to get weather-wise, so I think moving it later in the year helps. The other thing I like about it is the fact it’s now at the later part of the schedule and it gives you a week in between. For us, the great thing about the schedule that we have this year is it goes Charlotte, then we go to St. Louis. Well, in between that time we actually have to pass by our shop. We’re based out of Brownsburg, Indiana, in the Indianapolis area. The nice thing is you get to drive through it. Then to go to St. Louis, we have to drive through again to go to Reading. We’re constantly crossing by our shop. The reason why I say that’s so important, it’s the same for a lot of Top Fuel teams, if you hurt anything or have any problem, you still have the opportunity to swing by your shop and get things fixed. Sometimes out on the road you don’t have that opportunity. For us, I like the schedule. I think it’s good. It plays in our favor. I’m excited. I like it. I’m looking forward to it. Hopefully we have great weather at all six.
MODERATOR: We are joined by Erica Enders. Erica is the driver of the Elite Motorsports Chevy Camaro. She is the 2014 Pro Stock world champion. This is the first time she goes into the playoffs as the No. 1 seed. She has six wins this season, one runner-up finish, and five No. 1 qualifying positions. She won the most recent event at the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals. Erica, let’s start quick looking back at Indy. You said after the race it was going to take you a couple days to decompress and take it all in. What are your thoughts about winning Indy, which is also that last race before the playoff starts?
ERICA ENDERS: Winning Indy was a huge accomplishment for my entire team and I. It was my first U.S. Nationals win, along with my crew chiefs, Rick and Rickie Jones and Mark Ingersoll. It completed him winning a race on every track on the tour. Rick told me he’d been trying to win the U.S. Nationals for 45 years. My team owner as well. It was just a huge win, an emotional win for sure. We came off the win in Brainerd, went to Indy and won at Indy. We want to carry that momentum. You want to start off the Countdown on the right foot. Like Eddie said a minute ago, these are the six most important races of the season. You have to have as little parts failure as you can. You have to change things out more frequently than you would have before just to stay ahead of the game. I’m really excited, to be honest with you. I’m very optimistic about the final six. I know that my guys are, as well.
Q. You have an opportunity to do something actually Shirley (Muldowney) never did, which is go back-to-back with NHRA point Championships. Is that something you thought about? How difficult do you think that’s going to be going into the final six races where you’re the person everybody is aiming for?
ERICA ENDERS: Yes, I’ve definitely thought about it. Obviously, that’s every team’s goal out there, to go win the World Championship. It’s extremely competitive in Pro Stock, as you all know. To be able to accomplish what we did last year as a brand-new team is pretty unheard of.
Having said that, our season up to this point matches our championship season, and we haven’t started the Countdown yet. I’m very excited about what’s to come. I think we can do it. I put my money on us way more than anybody else because I know exactly what we’re capable of in high-pressure situations. It would be awesome to get it done. Like I said, there are nine other guys that want to do it, too.
Q. Just a few weeks ago you had back-to-back second-round losses at Sonoma and Seattle. Maybe didn’t look as promising. This is the second time this year you guys have come back from races like that and done something pretty remarkable. Talk a little bit about how you felt leaving Seattle, what you thought you needed to do to gain some momentum going into the championship.
ERICA ENDERS: Seattle was a very interesting race for us. We made mistakes as a team that we have never made before. It cost us that round win against Jeg (Coughlin). Jeg is one of the best drivers Pro Stock has ever seen. We knew we had to bring our A game up there. The fact he’s our teammate, we know the crew chiefs, same ones that work on my car. We went up there and things didn’t go right for us. Fortunately enough Jeg waited for us and we were just really rushed and things were going crazy. We didn’t rise to the occasion and had to regroup after that race. That’s something that is so precious about my team is that winning or losing, we have the same mentality, we have the same attitude. Yeah, it would be easy to get down in the dumps, but Richard Freeman, my team owner, is a great leader of people. He doesn’t allow for negative attitudes. He makes sure we’re all swimming in the right direction. I attribute to what we accomplished after Seattle to Richard and my guys. It would be really easy to be like we had a sucky weekend and that’s it. But we didn’t. Regrouped, went out and won Brainerd and Indy back-to-back.
Q. Erica, it seems like the Pro Stock rules are at least heading more down the road toward manufacture involvement, more identity with the car compared to the street car. Do you feel that’s true? Do you feel like your relationship with Chevrolet gives you a leg up there?
ERICA ENDERS: I guess I feel like we’re leading that way a little bit. But we’re still going to remain Pro Stock, factory Hot Rod. Back in the day they always said, Win on Sunday, sell on Monday. Fans have got to be able to identify the vehicles that we race on the racetrack with the ones they want to purchase at the dealership. Yes, but having said that, Pro Stock is such a crazy competitive class that is so intricate in how we prepare things. Yes, Chevrolet’s relationship with Elite Motorsports is extremely important. Of course, all the main guys from Chevy Performance were at the U.S. Nationals this weekend, being that it was the banner race. We had a handful of meetings with them. We have in the past while NHRA was negotiating these rule changes. We’ve all been on the same page from day one. They are going to help us as much as they possibly can. Their goal obviously is the same as ours: to put a Chevy Camaro in the winner’s circle, then to go on and win the World Championship. We’re going to do as much R&D as we can over the off-season. We have a lot of work in front of us, having to switch from carburetors to fuel injection, then turning power curve way down to 10,500 rpm is going to be very interesting. But I’ve got the best guys in the world on it and I’m very confident about it.
Q. Eddie was talking about his relationship with Harley Davidson. Is it the same with Chevrolet, do they help you with parts, or help with wind tunnel work?
ERICA ENDERS: Yeah, Chevrolet has provided us with wind tunnel testing time. That’s going to be crucial with this new hood, the intake that we’re going to have to put on the front to bring air into the motor. That wind tunnel time is crucial. They’ve obviously helped before with blocks and heads that they provide for us. Then, of course, we go to work on them and make them into what they are for our Pro Stock racing. Our relationship with Chevrolet is great. I’m proud to drive for them. They’ve gotten more heavily involved in our team and what we’re doing, especially since our success in 2014. So their help is much needed and very much appreciated.
Q. You mentioned that you’re really optimistic following up this championship season, you feel good up until this point. Do you feel any added pressure going into the Countdown as the No. 1 seed?
ERICA ENDERS: No, I don’t. I’m actually really excited to be in the No. 1 position because that 30-point bonus would have significantly changed things at Pomona last year when it came down to the final round at the final round at the final race with Jason and I. Had I lost that round, I would have lost the championship by one point.
So every point matters. That round at Indy against Greg Anderson in the semis, we knew what it meant. To be honest with you, it felt like we were back at the World Finals at Pomona last year. It was so important. We were able to get it done. We still have a ton of work cut out for us going into the Countdown. Greg and Jason and the guys at KB, Chris McGaha, they all really have great horsepower, but so do we at Elite Performance. We weren’t the fastest car at Indy. You bet your butt our guys are back in the shop working on that to see if we can find some more horsepower and get our act together for the Countdown.
Q. What does it mean to you having won Indy and now being able to look back and see your name in the record books with Shirley Muldowney?
ERICA ENDERS: It’s crazy. I really had trouble during my interviews following the win putting it into words. It’s hard to explain. I mean, we’ve accomplished a lot as a team. To just think that I got my first Pro Stock win three short years ago, then to be able to match our wins with my childhood hero, Shirley Muldowney, after Indy was pretty surreal and cool for me and my entire team. It was one thing left on our bucket list we hadn’t been able to accomplish yet. I came close to winning Indy in 2012, didn’t get it done, didn’t quite understand why things happened that way. I’m a firm believer in that there’s a plan bigger than mine. Doing it with the right people is important. That was an awesome accomplishment. I honestly don’t know how to describe it. The passion and the heart and the time and the money, just dedicating your entire life to the sport, for me it took 23 years to get it done, and my crew chiefs it took 45 years. It’s crazy to think about that and to have finally have had it happen.
Q. Erica, obviously it’s your first time going into the Countdown competition as a champion from last year. Are you comfortable with your performance this year as compared to last year? Do you feel your championship experience will help you with the upcoming pressure?
ERICA ENDERS: Yeah. I mean, I definitely feel comfortable with our performance. But having said that, we’re not going to relax or take our foot off their throat, quote-unquote. It’s such an important deal to all of us. We want to be able to accomplish this year what we accomplished last year. We have suffered together as a team after we won Indy. We’re just looking at the things we’ve done this year. Like I mentioned a second ago, all of 2014 we won six races, set a couple records, went on to win the championship. At this point in the season, we’ve won six races in the K&N challenge. Hopefully we go on to win the world championship as well. What we learned last year performing together as a team is priceless. It’s very different to be chased rather than to chase. We just want to go into the Countdown with the mindset we had last year: we have nothing to lose, nothing to prove, we’ll let God do the rest. I have all the faith and confidence in the world. We’re going to go out there and swing for the fences.
Q. What crossed your mind the moment you saw that you had won the U.S. Nationals?
ERICA ENDERS: I just, like, was waiting. I go from shutting the car off right at the finish line, because it’s important not to over-rev these Pro Stock cars. So I shoved the clutch in, my eyes immediately go to the guard wall where the win light is. It felt like it took a second to light up.
I’m pretty sure I was screaming really loud on the radio to my guys. My crew chief was like, you busted my eardrum. It’s so exciting. It’s such an accomplishment. It goes right up there with winning the championship. I try to be really tough. I hate to be a girl sometimes and have a little extra emotion. But I’ve never cried at a race win before. At Indy it was really hard to swallow. It was such a huge accomplishment for my entire team. It’s something we’ve all wanted to do for so long. To be able to do it by not being the fastest car out there, dig deep, all of us and race with all the heart we had, we were able to come out on the good side. It was such a huge bonus and honor to be able to race alongside my teammate Drew Skillman. What he’s accomplished in his rookie year is amazing. It took me seven years to get done what he’s done this year. Having said that, when I taught him how to drive coming into this year, I told him I spent a decade screwing up, having to learn things for myself because people didn’t want to teach me the right way. I wanted him to be able to learn how to bypass all of those mistakes that took me 10 years to learn. He’s just done a tremendous job. For our entire Elite Motorsports camp, it was just a huge accomplishment and I could not have been more excited. I woke up the last two days in a row thinking, Is this for real or am I dreaming? It’s definitely a surreal position to be in. I just feel so blessed to work with an incredible group of men. We have so much fun together, and we’re being successful while we have fun, which is a huge added bonus.
Q. Do you now feel more prepared heading into the final rounds than you ever have in your entire career?
ERICA ENDERS: I do. I mean, to be honest, I feel like we as a team learned a lot about ourselves last year, being able to perform well in those high-pressure situations. Behind the scenes, of course, your stomach is in a knot. I joked last year going into the final round, I mean, I could have puked. I think my crew chiefs were the same way. So much is on the line for one round. We were pretty tough. That’s something that we learned. So, you know, I’ve become a much better driver with the guys that are surrounding me now. My Elite Motorsports team have helped me so much. I feel even in crazy situations when things break, things go wrong, you’re rushed, you’re not in sequence, I’ve learned how to overcome those feelings and just be able to block that out. I feel like I can have anything thrown at me and we can have anything thrown at us and we can come out on top. That’s something that we had to learn and had to acquire over the years. Going into this Countdown, yes, I feel like we are the best that we have ever been and I’m very, very excited about what’s to come.
Q. Remember those days when you used to drive for Jim Cunningham, were those days when you were out of a ride and went and drove a Pro Nitrous car, did you ever envision in a million years where you’re sitting right now?
ERICA ENDERS: I always hoped and dreamed that I would be able to have accomplished what we do. But I don’t know if I ever thought it would ever happen. I mean, to be honest, I want to race so bad. I’ll drive anything. But my heart is in Pro Stock. I feel like I’ve waited my entire life, my entire career to be teamed up with a group of guys like I’ve got now. That makes it so much more fun and so much better. I mean, people are the most important part of the puzzle. I feel like I say that an awful lot. You can have all the money in the world, all the sponsors, the parts, whatever, but you can’t buy what we have at Elite Motorsports. That makes it that much more special. So I had hoped we’d be in this position. But to be honest, after what happened to me in 2013, leaving Cagnazzi where I raced so long, Dave (Connolly) taking over that ride, I was over it. I have an education, I can make way more money than I make drag racing. I thought about just being done with it. Richard Freeman saved me. We’ve been friends for a really long time. He talked to me about coming to drive for him. We were able to put something together when everything fell apart. That’s just another life lesson for me. I go to schools and speak to younger kids and talk about the importance of setting goals, having a positive mental attitude. I obviously need to listen to myself at some of those speeches. But had I quit, I would never have been able to experience what I’ve experienced with this great group of guys. I’m so glad and so thankful. We’re going to just keep on trucking as long as we can.
Q. You mentioned being a little bit more emotional than other times. I’m not going to say you attributed it to being a female driver because you don’t like for me to say those kind of things, but how much of a chip did you have on your shoulder or how big was the chip on your shoulder when you came back with the elite performance that you wanted to prove to the world something?
ERICA ENDERS: It was pretty big. I mean, that’s something that I pray to God a lot. I struggled with it as a human, as a Christian, and I needed to get better at it. Richard has really helped me with my attitude, don’t sweat the small stuff type of deal. That’s helped me to be a better driver, as well, and certainly to have a lot more fun and not worry about it. But we were able to come out and prove to everybody that we could do it. We were the underdog and the misfits, whatever people have branded us. We accomplished everything we wanted to. It was really cool to put an exclamation point at the end of the season our first year together as a young, under-funded team. To be able to skip two races and win the World Championship, it just says so much of what we’re capable of together.
MODERATOR: Jack Beckman is the driver of the Infinite Hero Dodge Charger R/T. Beckman earned the No. 1 seed this season during the eliminations at the most recent U.S. Nationals event. He has six wins this season, one runner-up finish, five No. 1 qualifying positions, and this is his first time to be the No. 1 qualifier heading into the playoffs. He is also the 2012 Funny Car world champion. He won the most recent event here at Indy. Jack, you as well kind of talked about after the race on Monday that you couldn’t quite put into words what winning Indy meant to you. Do you have a little bit clearer picture now after a couple days?
JACK BECKMAN: Wow, interesting question. I think from outside people tend to think that driving a Fuel car is a rockstar style job. It probably is. What they don’t realize is rockstars have regular jobs, too. They have houses that need fixing, spouses, kids. There’s not that opportunity to just go off the reservation and party and celebrate. I was on an airplane at 6:40 Tuesday morning heading back home to my eight-year-old and four-year-old kids, my wife, right back into dad and husband mode. You didn’t get that, yes, we did it, type of feeling. Then again, that’s kind of been my life since I’ve been a professional driver. I didn’t bring the trophy home with me either. I was not about to put it in carry-on up in the overhead bin there. I’ll get that in Las Vegas.
It’s starting to sink in that we won Indy, that we doubled up at Indy, swept Indy, new track records, top speed. But I think the final portion of that is going to be when that trophy — it’s so funny, I came home and my mother-in-law had rearranged the trophy shelf in the closet, and there’s a post-it note that says ‘Indy.’ That’s the space reserved for it. So when the trophy parks itself there permanently, that’s when I put the exclamation point on it.
MODERATOR: Looking back at the season as a whole, when we left Pomona, it was a DNQ. You left Phoenix with a first-round loss. I think you were 15th in points. Did you in your wildest dreams think this is where you would be going into Charlotte?
JACK BECKMAN: Well, I knew we were going to be in good shape. When we DNQ’d at Pomona, I was very surprised that I wasn’t absolutely devastated. But I think I recognized that we lost the last session due to rain. It was an entirely new combination for Prock and Medlen. It was really a new combination for (co-crew chief Chris) Cunningham, who stayed on from last year. We did kind of a hybrid. Jimmy (Prock, crew chief) brought some of his own technology over and stayed with a lot of the DSR parts. It was new for everybody in the crew chief area. I knew, and I said it back then, give us 20 runs to the finish line and we’ll have this figured out. Our 18th run to the finish line was the final round in Charlotte and our first win of the year. From there it’s just been fantastic. But, no, I didn’t think we’d be first right now. I remember Saturday at Sonoma. They did an interview with Ron Capps and I. One of the questions asked was, “do you guys think you can catch Hagan for first in the points?” We just came off a Denver win. Going into Denver, we were nine rounds behind (Matt) Hagan’s car. I was real skeptical about our chances for catching him. As I explained in that interview, I said, “Not only would we have to be near perfect, but they would have to stumble.” That team had not yet stumbled this year. I can’t believe we went from a nine-round deficit to an eight-round surplus in that period of time. We gained 17 rounds on what was the best team out there, and I thought that would have been impossible.
Q. Every year for the last couple of years, we’ve always had to have the same talk, or we’ve always heard the same thing. Is Jack Beckman’s ride secure for next year. I know you got tired of hearing that every year. I’m guessing you feel quite a bit more secure these days?
JACK BECKMAN: Well, I mean, the bottom line is, it’s all about money in these cars. It’s all about funding. The issue that we were up against for the last few years is Valvoline paid us for 10 races. So that meant we were committed to running the car, but we were trying to fill in more than half a season’s worth of funding. Don runs Schumacher Racing like a business. That’s why it’s been successful over a 15-year period. The first thing you protect are your marquee teams, that had always been Army and NAPA. When Don needed to shore up the NAPA team in 2012, the only logical choice was take it from the lowest funded team, which was the car I drove. I never took it personally. A lot of people thought it was. I knew it was absolutely about business.
This year through Terry Chandler, we have the funding, and Don proved that by bringing on (John) Medlen and Prock. From my understanding, we will continue with Terry Chandler through next year. It’s wonderful. This is the earliest in the season in my entire nitro career, in 10 years, the earliest I’ve ever known that I’ve had a job the next year.
Q. When you started off the season, you mentioned, give us 20 runs. Based off of the years that you’d had before that, was there really a reason to feel confident in all of that?
JACK BECKMAN: 20 runs to the finish line. If you go out there and smoke the tires at the step, you typically don’t learn a lot. I said, 20 runs to the finish line. Yes. When you look at a guy like Jimmy Prock, you have to know that his track record dictates that he may stumble, but he’ll pick himself up and be at the head of the pack pretty soon. I knew Cunningham had enough knowledge of the way our stuff worked last year to help Jimmy assimilate into the DSR technology. I knew Jimmy and John were going to figure out the stuff they brought in and homogenate that with our stuff.
Q. I see that you caught your stride in the beginning of the season. For the last third of the season, you have just really put things together. What has changed between starting off in Pomona and right now?
JACK BECKMAN: Mastering the combination. I mentioned, Jimmy clearly had a great working combination over at John Force Racing. You look at last year, DSR won the championship with Hagan and Venables. They clearly had great working relationship with DSR technology.
I believe that when Jimmy first came over, he wanted to adapt all of technology, wholesale changes to his car. As he started looking through our parts, our clutches, our super chargers, our cylinder heads, our camshafts, heads, he came to the realization we had some good stuff, too. I believe he cherry picked. He made a couple changes or things he was more familiar with and kept the stuff he liked of ours. It just took a while to make everything work right. It’s really about making the car predictable. Once it’s predictable, it’s consistent. Once it’s consistent, you can step on it and pick up the performance a little bit. It’s absolutely not one thing. I hope that the rest of the competition thinks it’s one thing on the car, because what will happen is they’ll change that one thing and realize they’re still 3/100ths behind us. We did it with 15 different things. I hope it takes them six more races to catch up.
Q. I read in 2012 it was a rebuilding season for you and that was the year you won the championship. Do you see any parallels between this season and that season?
JACK BECKMAN: Gosh, I hope they end the same (laughter). Sure, yeah. The interesting thing is, if you look at the Infinite Hero team, I’m kind of the new guy. Jimmy, John and five of the crew guys all worked together last year. Chris Cunningham and I are the only two that were on that team at the end of last year. So it wasn’t about them coming over to a new situation. I was kind of put in a new situation. And the same thing happened in 2012. When Don decided to switch Capps and my team and cars and trailers, I walked over to a different pit area. The only thing I had was my fire suit, helmet and body, body of the car, and we didn’t even have a crew chief yet. He had not even decided who the crew chief was going to be. There was a bunch of pissed-off guys. They had been working for Ron Capps for years. The carpet got pulled out from under them and now they have some guy named Jack Beckman as their driver. Boy oh boy, did we come and put things together. Todd came in, rallied the guys. He and Terry Snyder made all the right decisions up in the crew chief lounge. It was an absolute Cinderella story. The biggest difference between that and right now is if Jimmy Prock wins the championship, nobody is going to think that was a Cinderella story.
Q. You’re certainly on a roll this season. An understatement really. Winning streaks in sports come and go. They always carry that certain ‘wow’ factor. Can you maybe define what that is, what that means for you and your team?
JACK BECKMAN: Yeah, you know, maybe an interesting parallel. It would have been interesting to talk to Joe DiMaggio 38 games into his hitting streak, which I think ended at 56 games or something. At some point you’re just out there swinging the bat at the ball. After a certain number of consecutive hits, people start going, This guy is on to something, how long is it going to last? I think what happens is, when everything is going well, doing your job right is actually easier. I think the results can oftentimes drive the attitude. But I don’t think you’re ever going to start getting good results unless you have the right attitude to drive that. So I think that even when things were horrible in 2014, one final round, no wins, I still think I kept a good attitude. I did my best every time I could go up there. I came back with a smile even though sometimes I felt like crying. In some ways keeping my head above water helped prepare me for when things go well. I’m not beating my chest or pointing my finger at anybody. Like you said, these things can come and these things can go. I think the 11 of us are doing enough things correctly, I think we are blending with each other, the chemistry on the team are fantastic. There are no heroes on our team. There’s 11 people that equally share in the tasks and should equally share in the results of this. I think because of that, I don’t see any reason why this can’t continue for six more races.
Q. Your team smiles quite a bit right now, right?
JACK BECKMAN: I thought you said ‘smells quite a bit’ (laughter). It’s easy to be a great winner, have a great attitude when everything is going well. It’s tough when you’re struggling. We were struggling early this year. We went to Phoenix and tested after Pomona. Then we lost first round at Phoenix. We stayed in Phoenix and tested again. I’m going to tell you, the only car in the pit area, the only car running that day, we’re eating pizza over lunchtime, we go out there and run a 395. That little piece of paper that said that number put the smiles back on the guys’ faces. We had a talk. We’re struggling right now, but let’s never forget what we’re capable of. Jimmy is a very motivating guy. It’s not a crew, it’s really a family. Before Indy and after Indy, we all got together at Jimmy’s house. It’s just so gratifying to see that people get along the way they get along. Because that’s a home race for the crew, all the guys had their spouses or significant others there. It’s a big family. It makes a difference on the racetrack.
Q. You’re having the stellar half of a season you want to have. The one thing that I notice constantly is it’s no longer an amazing moment for you to run a 3.9 second run. What does that mean to you and feel like to you making that run?
JACK BECKMAN: I think when Tim Wilkerson ran the 100th three, and I believe it was at Brainerd, I think that’s kind of the point where you can tell yourself, the novelty’s kind or worn off on seeing a 3-second time slip on the scoreboard. Unless you get miserably hot race, or perhaps somebody does it at Denver, then it will be a big accomplishment. But you’re right, I think Jimmy, John, Chris, the Infinite Hero crew, have changed the paradigm for Nitro Funny Car. What once was impossible has now kind of become routine. I thought at the beginning of this year if you did everything perfect and the conditions were right, you’ll see a 3.93 out of a Funny Car. How many sub 3.93s have there been this year? More than a handful. What happens is at some point you’re so flabbergasted, it’s just not the same reaction to see that number crop up on the scoreboard. The other thing that we’ve done, our semifinal tracks this run, we went a 4.02. While nobody is going to look at the scoreboard and go, Oh, my God, a 4.02. We ran that on a 128 degree racetrack. That’s impossible to do before this year. It’s not that we’re running these huge ETs. It’s that we’re running ETs on hot racetracks that are six/hundredths better than you would have expected last year. That Infinite Hero brain trust has reset the standard and benchmark for what’s possible in a Funny Car.
Q. What does that mean to you as a driver when you know even though the temperatures are up, that you can still run fast or as fast as you could run when conditions used to be perfect?
JACK BECKMAN: I think my realization on that is that as you go faster under similar conditions, relative to what you did last year, logic would dictate that you’re getting closer to that tipping point, that you’re balancing more on the razor’s edge. I realize that it is so critical to be smooth on that car. The first qualifying run we made at Indy, I think I oversteered it to try to keep it in the groove, and that unloads one tire a little more than the other as the weight transfers to the side. You’re seeing lateral G’s. The car didn’t like it. It smoked the tires. Ron Capps will tell you the same thing about the night run out there. It’s just so much more critical. The things we’ve done to make these cars accelerate harder have also made them more difficult to drive. So it’s really tightened up that window for the drivers on trying to be perfect, manage the car, and yet not overcorrect when necessary.
Q. After this historic win for you, are you going to do anything special for Terry Chandler?
JACK BECKMAN: After winning Indy? What Anthony is talking about, when you win a race, you get a race-winning jacket. I hadn’t won in 55 races. There was no question in my mind that if we won, no guarantee we were going to win one, that that jacket was going to Terry Chandler. Wouldn’t have a job this year if it wasn’t for her. The funny thing is Terry doesn’t want you to do anything for her. Her greatest joy, tell you a quick story, on our Saturday night qualifying run, I took a six-year-old boy and his father — the boy’s name is Jordan and he has muscular dystrophy. He has the worst type of muscular dystrophy and he doesn’t have a long life expectancy. I met his parents through some of the firefighters that worked at the track. They had done a benefit for him. Well, I walked Terry and her husband Doug over to our tow vehicle before we ran that night and introduced them. Obviously with the Make-a-Wish deal, you know Terry cares about the children as much as she cares about the veterans. She has a foundation to help kids. All I wanted to do was introduce him to her. She loves things like that. She’s going to help the family out. She doesn’t want any thanks. Her thanks is being able to do something for that family.
Q. The Infinite Hero program, have you seen an increase in money for coins?
JACK BECKMAN: Yeah, great question. My God, is it interesting. The faster your car runs, the more rounds you win, the line gets deeper and deeper to sell these challenge coins. I take 15 every run, lately I’ve had to bring 25 on many run simply because we sell out. I don’t ever want to sell out because every coin is worth $100 towards helping veterans coming back with physical or mental or brain injuries. The Western Swing, to give you guys an example, a good race would have been 48 to 50 coins, so $5,000. I did over 300 coins on the Western Swing alone. So we averaged $10,000 a race over those races. I didn’t get the total from Indy, but it’s got to be way up there, as well. I think we just passed $120,000 mark for coin sales. That’s strictly NHRA fans showing up at the ropes or going online at Infinite Hero and making that donation. That represents 1200 coins that I’ve taken down the drag strip this year. Way above my expectations. And we’re not done yet.
Q. Following up on one of the questions you answered about Jimmy Prock cherry-picking combination and parts. Would you say that you’re about as close as there is to a John Force, Don Schumacher combined Funny Car? And has Jimmy been willing to share any of that information with other teams?
JACK BECKMAN: Yes and yes. It’s an open-door policy in our lounge. I hope that changes now that we go into the Countdown. Here is the funny thing. Don Schumacher has four Funny Cars. If I’m driving the one that’s struggling, I want the best car to share all their information with me. If I’m driving the one that’s excelling, I want to wait three months and share all the information with the other teams. It’s an absolute open-door policy. Don is very savvy about letting the crew chiefs do their own thing and it will lead them down different paths. He’s also smart enough to know when it’s time to intervene. It’s amazing how different the philosophies are amongst the four teams and how we approach running the car. But I think that the other three crew chiefs have made us a little better and I think Jimmy has made the other three cars a little better.
MODERATOR: We are joined by Tony Schumacher, our No. 1 seed in Top Fuel. Tony is the driver of the U.S. Army dragster. He raced to the No. 1 seed on three wins, three runner-up finishes and three No. 1 qualifying positions. This is the second time he has been the No. 1 seed entering the playoffs. The last time was in 2008, which he went on to win the playoffs that season of the. Tony, looking back on your season to date, the No. 1 qualifier, but as a whole how would you rate your season so far?
TONY SCHUMACHER: I’ve liked it. I’ve enjoyed it. You win races and you lose races. Like Beckman says, man, right timing is everything. It’s funny because we don’t look like it’s our right time. I mean, Brainerd wasn’t very good. Indy was rough on us. But we had a good lead going into Brainerd. My crew chief was insistent on going out and trying some things he’d been longing to try for a while. We stayed after yesterday and tested. I think we’re exactly where we need to be. I said at the champ banquet last year, winning one is so difficult, but winning back-to-back is ludicrous. The teams are great, the drivers are doing a heck of a job, and all the cars are fast. No longer one car doing his job and everybody else chasing. Monster battle. Worth the admission to every one of these six races.
MODERATOR: Tony, we’ve seen teams get in streaks this season in Top Fuel. Can a team get on a streak even if it’s just for three races and have a shot at the championship or does there need to be some good, consistent runs for all six events?
TONY SCHUMACHER: You know, both ways. We’ve done it both ways throughout the Countdown format. We’ve done it both ways before the Countdown format. It’s right time, right place, man. We could win all the races up till now. You still got to win the next six. You can have horrendous luck and you can just mess up. Seems to be when the pressure is high, some teams make mistakes, and some teams seem to excel. I’m not going to say we’re going to sit back and see what happens. We’re going to force the issue, go out, make teams take shots at us. We’re going to have to take a few shots ourselves. That’s just the way it is. These are just incredible cars out there right now, man. I don’t mean just Indy. It was very hot out. But as we get to these last six and it starts to cool off again, you can do some throw-down runs, there’s some pretty bad to the bone teams out there.
MODERATOR: Is that where a racetrack like Maple Grove can be instrumental? Do you think a Top Fuel record is out? We look at that track as having historic runs. Is that 20 points in play?
TONY SCHUMACHER: I don’t know, man. I would have thought so before Brainerd. Brainerd, the conditions were just so perfect. The conditions will have to be exact, not only do it one time Friday night, but do it twice. I don’t know that 20 points is going to make the championship. There’s a lot of points out there. Six races, all the bonus points. If you go out there and just do your job from the get-go, stay ahead, be a machine, do what you got to do, you can win some things. But, man, any mistake early, all of a sudden you can find yourself 30, 40, 50 points behind. It’s a tough deal, man, when you’re sitting back there. You start to turn knobs you’re not exactly sure about because you’re forcing the issue. On the flipside of that, being in the No. 1 spot, sometimes you get a bit defensive and get defeated. What we have in our advantage is we’ve been here a numerous amount of times. We’ve done this. We’ve been on the front, we’ve been on the back. We know the pressure, we know how hard it is. We know what we expect from our team. We know how many days we’ll have to test and how many extra hours we’ll have to put in to win these things because we’ve done it before.
Q. You have star power as an incredible repeat champion and entertainer when the TV is on you, your hospitality, too. Can you comment on the stardust you’ve encountered along the way, the celebrities you’ve run into, and share whether there is any stardust, the joy you must get from spreading your stardust with so many fans.
TONY SCHUMACHER: I’ve met so many people along the way. When I was young, at a place called Dairymen’s Country Club in Boulder Junction, Wisconsin, I saw the limelight from Rush. It was great. All the world is a stage. We are merely players, performers and portrayers each and other’s audience outside the gilded cage. I remember being 10 and hearing that. I didn’t understand that. But it’s funny. I’ll be out at a race, celebrities will show up at the race. I’ll want to go to a Metallica next week or a Kid Rock concert. They come out to the races. We enjoy what they do. They enjoy what we do. How great they are at their job. The reason we buy their albums, listen to their stuff, watch their movies. It’s pretty special. If you can share a little bit of that back, not just to them, they’ve already made it, but these kids, man, that are looking up. You’ve been to my speeches on Saturday. Centers of influence. I tell everybody, We invite centers of influence out, we have names for these people. In reality, every single one of us has some kid watching. Whether we do things right or do things wrong, there’s somebody watching. We got to be very aware of that. We owe it to them to do the right things. We owe it to their parents to make sure we’re good role models. Make sure if they do see us as something special, that what they see us as is good. I think it’s an important part of life.
Q. Do you practice with the microphone in the car?
TONY SCHUMACHER: Yeah, you’ve seen me do it. We set up on stage. Open-mic night. We all had a chill-out. If I was as good at guitar as I was racing, maybe I’d be in a rock band. I love that. I just really enjoy music. I don’t want to be a movie star, this or that. But music is something. Sing in the car. We all have our music on before good races. It’s all good.
Q. Tony, when you look back at your entire number of championships and everything, measure the competition that you are facing this year versus the competition of previous years.
TONY SCHUMACHER: Hmm, great question. I think there’s substantially more great people now. I think there’s substantially more really good people now. You don’t have a one Gary Scelzi, one Joe Amato, one (Kenny) Bernstein. You have seven, eight guys on race day that are going to be really hard to beat. I think it’s more fun. You don’t have that one guy, if you can get by him, the next couple might be easy. I don’t remember the last time I had an easy first round, ever, in the last maybe three years. We forget that the Bernsteins and those guys, Kenny is not there anymore, there’s new guys in the making and they’re doing a really good job. Morgan Lucas can come out to a race after taking a few races or half a season off and win Indy. He’s a good driver, has talent. Those guys show up and they make it exciting when we’re racing them. I think I appreciate it, I really do. Again, for the nine-millionth time, those trophies that sit on the shelf that have beat good drivers are the ones that are the most prevalent in the trophy case, the most difficult to earn. I used to get 10 trophies a year, nine trophies a year, 15 one year. I got three right now. There’s a reason for that. We didn’t get worse. Others got better. Each one is more gratifying. Those kids out there that hear my speeches, everyone doesn’t get a participation trophy, we don’t all win, I can prove it, hundreds of trophies I didn’t get just for showing up, you know, because these guys are good at their job. But what makes those things so enjoyable is the big letdowns like Indy where it hurts. We got beat. Now we better figure it out. So we stay and we test. Kids have to understand that. People have to get it. We don’t all win, we don’t all get jobs. We don’t all get paid the same. It’s not life. It’s not how it works. You can’t do that. It’s about winning and surrounding yourself with people capable of that moment. Do I think it’s going to be easy this year? No. These last six races will be the most difficult six races we’ve ever faced.
Q. It’s obvious you’ve grown as a driver from year to year to year. At what point in your life did you discover that it felt just as good to deliver messages to kids?
TONY SCHUMACHER: I’ve done 15 years for the Army of speeches to kids. I’ve had so many kids and fathers and mothers come up and go, My kid was a C student last year, he gets A’s now. He heard you, he listened. It’s not tons of kids, but a few. They come up and say. Every kid has it in them to be good. They get other things they’re busy with. I see it in my kids, you know. I see my son who has a brilliant mind. He’s definitely got mom’s mind. He’s just got other things that entertain him. If he could just stay focused. I watch it happen. We as centers of influence need those kids to understand that. We need to go in a better direction than we’re going right now. Everybody wins. We’ve shoved that down their throat too many years. Now we’ve got to fix it. I think at some point I’m in that position where I may get some boos when I say that from some people during my speeches, but most everybody claps. There’s always going to be those people that think we should all be even, but it’s not true, and it’s never going to be true.
Q. My son who is doing some work on the NASCAR side said, Dad, what NHRA driver do you think would be best to step right into a winning role in a NASCAR racecar? I said, Tony Schumacher, without a doubt. The reason I said that is because when it comes to pressure situations, you turn into someone between a human and a robot. You just deliver in those situations. Now, with that said, behind the scenes, is there a time you ever get nervous, show that you’re human?
TONY SCHUMACHER: Definitely. For sure. I get nervous that I’m not going to be good enough. Everybody does. I think it’s what makes you practice. It’s what makes you eat healthy, work out. The fear of not being good, you know. I appreciate that a thousand percent, but I think what would make me a NASCAR driver or any other kind is the fact that I’m humble enough to listen. I do not think I can go over there and whip their butts. Those guys are great at what they do. I do, however, think I’m trainable. Kids need to hear that. Don’t always walk around thinking you’re the greatest. I learn stuff every day. I have people do stuff against me racing that teaches me something. Have that open mind. I think the advantage I’d have, flying a plane, doesn’t matter, I would sit down, listen, learn, take notes, ultimately listen to people who know what they’re doing so I could become good at that job. My favorite expression has always been, Over prepare, then go with the flow. You over prepare for a school test, you get an A because you’re prepared for it. Show up for that test having studied nothing at all, see how nervous you are. That’s a different nerve. You know you’re beat. Mine nerve comes from knowing I prepared and knowing I left nothing on the tables. Last thing I want to do is get to Indy and get in the finals and get beat by a holeshot. I’m not saying a holeshot like Robert Hight when he had a good light, but a great light. Can you change those numbers by where you’re staged. I mean actually being late where you know you had it, you could have won it, and you didn’t do it because you messed up. We’re nervous about it. I am human. We all practice to eliminate those risks, but we’re still human, man. We can still make mistakes. I think train, prepare, get ready so you can eliminate the majority of them.
Q. I guess it was 1998, your dad blames you for making DSR the monster it is today because you drug him back out here. There’s talk of a fourth Top Fuel team over at DSR. Does that kind of stuff make you happy or does it make you say, Oh, great, yet another assassin in my own camp?
TONY SCHUMACHER: I don’t care. I mean, it’s racing. We have a great time doing it.
What I don’t like is when I’m asked to teach someone how to drive good and then they beat me. It doesn’t pay my bills. In reality I love the fight. Man, when I went to St. John’s Military School in Delafield, Wisconsin, you walked by this building, you saluted every time, a big building, all four sides they have something different. One side just said, Play the game. I always remembered that. If you enjoy the game itself, not the money or the trophy, but the game itself, the game, you’re going to enjoy life a whole lot more. I didn’t like getting beat in Indy, but I shook (Shawn) Langdon’s hand because he beat me at the game. It was uncomfortable, and I didn’t smile. I can get through that. I can make it look like I can handle it. It doesn’t make me happy, but I enjoy the fight. I love that part of it. I think of that sign. I have it on my phone. I took a picture of it. Went back there a few years ago, did a speech for them. I’ll remember that, Play the game. If that’s where your heart lies, you can be good at anything. It’s always a battle, it’s always a fight, it’s always enjoyable. The outcome is incredible when you win it, but it’s only incredible because you’ve lost some of them. If you won every one of them, how much fun would it be, if you won every single game all the time, you’d never have that heartbreak, never have the drive to go out and win. It wouldn’t make sense.
Q. You said this is the most difficult competition field that you’ve ever faced. Do you see this could potentially come down to the final round at the end of the season?
TONY SCHUMACHER: Absolutely. Could it? I hope it doesn’t. Like Beckman says, I hope it doesn’t at all. I hope we go out and dominate. But I’m not stupid. It probably will. That’s why they designed it, to keep people watching TV till the last moment. Look at Indy, man. I had to sit and watch Antron. That was the first time I had to watch someone else. If Antron would have won that round, he would have taken over the lead. I don’t remember the last time it’s come down to that. It’s always been me in the seat. If I win, I’m the champ. I’ve never had to sit back and watch. That’s a difficult thing to do because you want to have some class. You don’t want to hope Antron gets beat. That’s not how you want to win stuff. So you find yourself in kind of a peculiar spot. I think it’s going to be fantastic. I think if we can keep the stands full, like every driver dreams of, because we don’t want to show up and race with no one there. We’re going to give them a great show. The more people that come and see great shows, the bigger our sport will get. It’s a phenomenal sport. It’s the best on the planet. We need people to come out and see it.
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