Reigning Top Fuel champion Tony Schumacher said several years ago, when he had only one or two National Hot Rod Ass’n series titles to his credit, “It’s not enough to be pretty good. Pretty good is what most people are.”
That ambitious mission statement has translated into four-straight and five overall championships and two victories in four events this season. As he strives to break legend Joe Amato’s records for most titles and most No. 1 qualifying positions, he already is ninth on the career victories list. That puts him in the drag-racing thermosphere, with the likes of John Force, Warren Johnson, Bob Glidden, Kenny Bernstein, Greg Anderson, Don Prudhomme and the late Dave Schultz. If he continues on this pace, he could rise among the top five this season.
It’s clear that his U.S. Army Dragster team is way more than “pretty good.” But Schumacher is the first to say that’s because of the men who give him the best set of conditions — his crew.

“The values of the military really reflect on everything we do here. They’re great values. Everybody should live by them."

— Shane Boyington

One of the newest members of the team is one of the most modest. But Shane Boyington, a lanky, unassuming young man from Iowa, embodies the spirit of this dominant organization in the drag-racing world’s dominant class.
Boyington, the tire and body specialist, shrugs off any notion that he brings a warrior mentality to the Schumacher pit. But he can’t argue that he personifies the character traits that this U.S. Army team lives by — the ones trumpeted on signs that ring the Don Schumacher Racing hospitality tent: duty, honor, integrity, personal courage and selfless service.
But in just his second year with Schumacher Racing, he still is fresh from an 8-year stint in the Army, behind him a tour of duty in Iraq as a tank mechanic with the 82nd Airborne. So this team doesn’t just talk the Army talk; it has a genuine soldier on the crew.
“The values of the military really reflect on everything we do here,” Boyington said. “They’re great values. Everybody should live by them.”
Like any true soldier, he credited the general’s decisions. No, not Schumacher’s. Tony Schumacher got the tag simply of “The Sarge,” certainly not at the top of the chain of command. The General in this outfit is crew chief Alan Johnson, MacArthurian in his resolve to win, Pattonesque in his take-no-prisoners demeanor, and Schwarzkopf-like in his entertaining straight talk.
“I’ll go with him to battle,” Boyington said, not boastfully, just matter-of-factly. “The Army succeeds when good generals call the shots, and we’re succeeding when he calls the shots. Whatever Alan wants, we give it.”
Johnson, indeed, has been the strategist behind Schumacher’s heroics. He took charge of the U.S. Army team at the 10th race in 2003 and brought the floundering driver a victory at the next race and four times that year to salvage a third-place finish. Then began their march of four-consecutive championships.
Johnson has been the champion Top Fuel crew chief for seven of the past 11 years, including three titles (1997-98, 2000) with Gary Scelzi in the Winston entry. Only Austin Coil of John Force Racing is in the same league. Coil has 14 Funny Car crowns in the past 17 seasons and 16 overall with his Chi-Town Hustler hot rod in which ’08 comeback classic Frank Hawley won the 1982 and ’83 titles.
 Among the foot soldiers in Johnson’s unit are Jason McCulloch, Rodger Whitworth, Nick Peters, Brian Michael Husen, Jim Marcellus and Lanny Miglizzi.
“I love being part of a team,” Schumacher said. “I’d be a terrible tennis player.”
That team — their team — is what made Boyington say, “We’re on top for a reason, and we want to stay there.”
Slogging through 20 more battles in this war, the U.S. Army team has a tough task.  
“The crew, it’s a never-quit deal,” Boyington said.
That, maybe more than any mechanical maneuvering from General Johnson, should steal the rest of the Top Fuel field for the fight.