What's NEW 2006: TOP FUEL

Tony Schumacher

For the second straight year, Tony Schumacher will begin a season with the number 1 on his car, signifying his status as the NHRA POWERade Top Fuel world champion. The U.S. Army-backed driver dominated in 2005, much like he did in 2004, when he won his second Top Fuel title (he also won the title in 1999). Last year was tuner Alan Johnson's fifth Top Fuel title as a tuner in just his second full year of tuning Schumacher.

Schumacher will begin the season with two new Brad Hadman-built chassis, the type Johnson (has been a fan of for years. Schumacher has already been to the Don Schumacher race shop in Brownsburg, Ind., to get fitted into 'the cars' molded seats, but he reported that the team is awaiting a final ruling from NHRA on some aspects of the chassis. For 2006, NHRA has mandated that the back halves of Top Fuel chassis be heat-treated - something that Murf McKinney has done to his chassis for years, but Hadman had not.

"I've broken both types of chassis," said Schumacher, who crashed heavily at the top end in Memphis in 2000 when the rear wing came off the McKinney-built car. In Seattle last year, Schumacher's Hadman-built car broke behind the driver's compartment and briefly folded upward before he got off of the throttle.

The colors of the Army car will be reversed in 2006, with the front of the car yellow and the back of the car black. The Army of One designation will not be on the car.

"We have two used cars set up differently and two new cars," Schumacher said. "But we don't want to show up in Pomona with four cars set up differently. You need at least two set up the same."

Larry Dixon

Beginning in 2006, Larry Dixon, the 2002 and 2003 NHRA POWERade Top Fuel world champion, will race with a new tuner for the first time in six years because Dick LaHaie retired from active racing at the end of the 2005 season. LaHaie's righthand man for all of those years, and the Miller Lite team's day-to-day operations manager, Donnie Bender, will begin calling the shots. However, LaHaie, who used to fly to the events and never visited the race shop in Brownsburg, Ind., between events, will still be just a phone call away in Michigan should Bender need to confer with him. Everybody on the team has had his responsibilities moved up a spot, including John Collins, who will be Bender's assistant. Collins had been in charge of maintaining the superchargers, ignition system, and other electrical components on the car.

"Nothing has really changed," Dixon said.

The Miller Lite team will begin the season with last year's McKinney-built car, and Dixon said they will test more before the season opener in Pomona than they ever have before.

"There were a lot of things Dick could sort out in his head, but Donnie wants to run the car."

They will test and begin the year with last season's car, which will look the same. Due to the demand of McKinney-built cars over the winter McKinney has been heat-treating the back half of his cars for years, so that task didn't have to be done by teams with McKinney cars over the winter team owner Don Prudhomme sold two used cars, one to Scott Weis. The Miller Lite team will debut new pipe after either the Phoenix national event or after Gainesville.

Doug Kalitta

After finishing as runner-up for the NHRA POWERade Top Fuel world championship in 2003 and 2004, Doug Kalitta, nephew of drag racing legend Connie Kalitta, finished a close third to second-place Larry Dixon in 2005. The Mac Toolshacked driver, who had five wins to Dixon's three, finished just 28 points hehind Dixon. However, Dixon had four runner-ups to Kalitta's two. Kalitta has been on the cusp of his first season title since runner-upping to Dixon in 2003 and to Tony Schumacher in 2004. Since 1994, when the USAC Sprint Car champion began driving in Top Fuel, he has finished out of the top five just once, in 1998, his first year on the NHRA tour.

Kalitta and his tuner Rahn Tobler will begin 2006 with the Attac-built car they used to close 2005, though it has been front- and backhalved. They will also be working out of a new tractor-trailer. According to Kalitta, their backup car will be "whatever we've got left over from last year."

Tobler, the husband of three-time Top Fuel champion Shirley Muldowney, will be in his third year as tuner for Kalitta.

The Mac Tools paint scheme will feature more red in 2006, and the Mac Tools lettering will change slightly.

"We'll go to the first Las Vegas test session and Phoenix, and we'll play it by ear from there," Kalitta said.

Dave Grubnic

After netting a career-high fourth-place finish and his first national event win, Dave Grubnic will enter the new season not looking to change much of what was right last - year. The team will begin the season with last year's car, and new iron is in the works. StriVectin-SD, which replaced Zantrex-3 on the car's flanks late last year, will return as the team's primary sponsor, and the team, led by crew chief Jon Oberhofer, is largely unchanged.

"Our 2006 plans are pretty much the same as the 2005 plan, and that is to win the championship," Grubnic said. "I believe we are going to be doing more hi the clutch department this year. We know we have to become more consistent on tricky racetracks. The competition is going to be tough again this year. I don't think we can single anyone out as the toughest."