Championship Drag Racing

Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals
Atlanta, GA
(May 12-15)

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Tony Schumacher U.S. Army dragster

Atlanta, prerace: U.S. Army NHRA driver Tony Schumacher will be hoping for a little southern hospitality this weekend when he takes to Atlanta Dragway for the 25th annual Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals presented by Pontiac.

Schumacher, who drives the U.S. Army Top Fuel dragster, is coming off his worst outing of the still young 2005 season after a first round loss in Bristol, Tenn., two weeks ago.

After his earlier than expected exit in the O’Reilly Thunder Valley Nationals, Schumacher lost the Top Fuel points lead for the first time since the Phoenix race in February. He heads into the Summit Racing Equipment Southern Nationals 23 points behind new leader, Doug Kalitta.

“We’re okay,” said the 2004 NHRA POWERade Top Fuel world champion. “We’ve had some issues of late, but they’ll get taken care of. This U.S. Army team is world class. They know what to do and how to do it.”

One of the priorities for Schumacher entering the seventh race of the ’05 campaign is to qualify better than he has in the last couple of races. He’s recorded 13th-place and 14th-place efforts, successively.

“We’ve got to get down the track right off the truck,” he said. “We’ve gotten behind the eight ball at the last couple of events and that’s not good. You don’t want to have to play catch up as you go into eliminations on Sunday.”

The Chicago native has never won at Atlanta Dragway, but he was the number one qualifier there last year, while setting the track record for speed at 329.02 mph.

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