Travis Shumake experienced his “best day ever” this weekend at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway behind the wheel of his Gillette Labs Top Fuel dragster powered by Scrappers Racing. Sporting a mustache to kick off Gillette’s Movember campaign to raise awareness for men’s health issues, Shumake reset both his career-best speed and elapsed time records on his way to becoming an instant fan-favorite with a series of charismatic finish-line interviews in front of a packed house at the Ford Performance NHRA Nationals, the penultimate event of the 2024 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season.
To conserve money and parts, Shumake and the Scrappers team participated in only two of four qualifying opportunities, opting to make one pass on Friday and one more on Saturday. Friday got off to a great start for the Top Fuel up-and-comer who laid down a fierce lap of 3.897 seconds at 309.20 mph. On Saturday, Shumake made a career-best run when he went down the track at a blistering pace to record a 3.724 at 323.12, landing him in the No. 9 qualifier position.
In the first round of eliminations, Shumake faced No. 8 qualifier Shawn Reed. They were the first pair to hit the track on race day. It was a remarkable drag race to the finish line as Shumake and Reed left the starting line within five-thousandths of a second of each other and remained neck-and-neck as they roared down the track. Reed came out ahead resulting in an early exit for Shumake. Nevertheless, Shumake is feeling great about his best-performing Top Fuel event to date.
“This weekend legitimized so many pieces of what we are trying to build,” said Shumake. “Running in the low 3.70s with back-to-back 323 mph and 324 mph passes proved that this car is fully capable of running with the pack. Bringing Gillette on board and teaming up to kick off Movember also shows that the NHRA is ripe with opportunities for brands to have an impact that goes beyond just putting a logo on a car.”
To cap off a phenomenal weekend, Shumake appeared on Sunday night’s episode of “Watch What Happens Live” with Andy Cohen on Bravo TV.
“I’m having the time of my life,” continued Shumake. “On and off the track, things are really coming together and my racing dreams are slowly becoming reality. I wouldn’t be here without all my season-long partners. Michael and the team at CAS (a division of the American Chemical Society), the Napp brothers, and Andrew and the Gottschalk group continue to believe in me and weekends like this are a tribute to them. Lerner and Rowe surprised me with 100 billboards around Vegas featuring my big goofy mug and a good luck message. That was the icing on the cake of an iconic weekend.”
Shumake, who is a team owner as well as a driver, hopes to finish his 2024 season in two weeks when the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series rolls into Pomona, Calif. for the In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip, November 14-17.
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