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MOORESVILLE, N.C. — In a sport decided in split seconds, where winning can be measured in a thousandth of an inch, consistency is key. In the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series, that consistency goes beyond what a driver does before rocketing down a 1,000-foot long straight in less than four seconds at 340 mph.
At Rick Ware Racing, consistency extends to the pair of Top Fuel dragsters driven by Clay Millican and Tony Schumacher, where each chassis is the same. There are no nuances between Millican’s No. 51 Parts Plus dragster and Schumacher’s No. 15 American Communications Construction dragster.
Getting to this point ahead of the season-opening Gatornationals this weekend at Gainesville (Fla.) Raceway meant each driver had to try something new. For Schumacher, it meant getting accustomed to the kind of chassis Millican uses, and for Millican, it meant jettisoning an open cockpit for a closed-top canopy – a design pioneered by Schumacher and debuted by him in 2012.
“RWR is one team that operates two cars,” Millican said. “Our cars are exactly alike. The only difference is in what Tony weighs and what I weigh. That makes it easier for our crew chiefs to take the information they get and transfer it to both cars.”
For Millican, embracing the canopy was practical from a safety standpoint and from a team perspective.
“Tony is obviously committed to the canopy. There’s no way he’s going to run in an open-cockpit car,” Millican said. “But I also know it’s quieter and it’s safer, so from that standpoint alone, adopting it made sense. It also made sense from a competition standpoint because it’s another element that makes our cars the same.”
The canopy on RWR’s Top Fuel dragsters mimics the canopy of an F-16 fighter jet. It is constructed form Kevlar and carbon fiber, weighs 25 pounds, and features a 3/8-inch thick ballistic polycarbonate windshield.
“When I first ran the canopy, it was pretty intense,” said Schumacher, who developed the canopy with Aerodine Composites. “You were closed in, obviously, and it was quieter, and the vision was substantially better. When Clay got in it, he said he could hear better and see better. Most everything about the canopy is a positive, other than its weight. Twenty-five pounds is a lot of weight in the middle of the car.”
RWR is able to offset the weight of the canopy via the fitness of its drivers. Millican weighs 142 pounds and Schumacher is 175 pounds. “Pure muscle,” said a grinning Schumacher.
The drivers’ respective weight is the only difference between RWR’s two Top Fuel dragsters. This makes the job of the Oberhofer brothers, crew chiefs for Millican and Schumacher – Jon Oberhofer with Millican and Jim Oberhofer with Schumacher – more straightforward when it comes to tuning both cars for a series of runs through a race weekend.
“The Oberhofers wanted an exact replica of the car Clay was used to running. I was all for it, and I made the switch immediately,” Schumacher said. “Our cars are really close – not exact, because of our weights – but as close as they can be. So when we both go out and Jim and Jon run the numbers, it was kind of insane to see how close we are.”
Schumacher and Millican tested at Gainesville Feb. 17-20 ahead of the Gatornationals, making 11 runs apiece.
“For me, testing was all about getting used to the closed cockpit,” Millican said. “It had been 27 years driving an open-cockpit car. It was a really big change for a guy who’s made thousands of runs in one particular type of car. So it was good for me to make that many runs with the closed cockpit. After a few runs, I kind of forgot about them shutting the lid and sending me down the racetrack. Now, I’m ready to go for Gainesville.”
The Gatornationals kicks off NHRA’s milestone 75th season.
“Gainesville has a super stadium feel,” said Schumacher, a five-time Gatornationals winner. “You get in there and you look around and there’s so many fans. They really show up.”
Millican won last year’s Winternationals and the 2024 U.S. Nationals. He wants a Gatornationals title to complete the Grand Slam and join his teammate.
“If you put it in golf terms, there are three majors in drag racing – the U.S. Nationals, the Winternationals and the Gatornationals. I’ve checked two of those boxes, and the Gatornationals is still out there for me to get,” Millican said. “It’s one of the biggest races on the calendar, and the amount of people that come to it, I mean, it’s massive. The race is an absolute must-attend event. It’s a must-win event, as well.”
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