Clay Millican, Tony Schumacher Lead Rick Ware Racing’s Top Fuel Title Defense at 2026 NHRA Winternationals

If the desert heat of Chandler, Arizona left any doubt about what NHRA Top Fuel racing demands from its competitors and machinery, Pomona is about to remind everyone exactly why the 66th Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals is one of drag racing’s most iconic events.

Alongside the season-opening Gatornationals in Gainesville and the crown jewel U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, this event is one of NHRA’s three true majors. It carries weight, history, and is one of the events that every driver wants to win.

Coming into Pomona with some serious momentum is Rick Ware Racing, whose Top Fuel driver Clay Millican took the Winternationals win in 2025 in what can only be described as a classic pedalfest finish against Tony Stewart. Millican launched hard off the line with an impressive .038-second reaction time, held Stewart at bay all the way to the stripe, even as his 12,000-horsepower engine detonated near the finish line. The win light came on, and that’s all that mattered.

“It was a good day because we won it in a pedalfest. When we left the starting line, I knew I crushed the tree. I was .038 on the tree, which was phenomenal. I never heard Tony’s car, and as I was going down the racetrack, my car started laying down, laboring, and then ‘Kaboom!’ I’m coasting for the last 100 feet, and I’m like, ‘Oh please, finish line, hurry up and get here,’ and it did. The win light came on, and as it turned out, Tony had more problems in the other lane than what we had coming up on the finish line,” Millican states.

That was Millican’s eighth career NHRA victory and first Winternationals title in the No. 51 Parts Plus Top Fuel dragster. And the significance of the event wasn’t lost on him either.

“It was a big deal to win the Winternationals because it is so iconic and so much a part of drag racing history. People who don’t follow drag racing all that closely, you say ‘Winternationals,’ they still know what you’re talking about,” Millican explains.

Millican’s RWR teammate Tony Schumacher is no stranger to winning at Pomona. The NHRA’s all-time winningest driver, with 88 career victories and counting, has taken the Winternationals twice before, in 2004 and 2008. After joining RWR for the final seven races of the 2025 season as a tune-up for a full 2026 campaign, Schumacher arrives in Pomona with a point to prove and the experience to back it up behind the wheel of the No. 15 American Communications Construction Top Fuel dragster.

“You show up, and you bring your best. You don’t want to sneak up at the end and be like, ‘Hey, here I am.’ You want to show them from the beginning that you’re a team to be reckoned with, because if they’re not counting on you being good, they tune their cars differently. You need to be the car that makes them push it, makes them go out and make mistakes, because they have to beat you,” Schumacher says.

That’s the mindset of an 88-time winner. And whether he’s chasing win number one or win number 89, the approach hasn’t changed,

“Everyone has a book that says, ‘You know how to go this fast.’ When you’re in the car running quicker than that, the other teams have to push it harder, so they smoke the tires, they make mistakes, drivers red light. You want to be the machine. You want to be the one that everyone else is looking at, going, ‘Uh-oh. All right, we’re going to have to do something outside the box and make them do things they’ve never done,” Schumacher states.

And in a nod to the fans that make this sport what it is, Schumacher summed it up perfectly:

“We want to be that team that runs quicker and faster than everybody, and makes people reach for greatness. And that’s awesome because, the fans, they’re the ones paying the money for the tickets, and what they deserve is a great race. We need to give them a great race. We have excellent competition, and we need to be one of the contenders at every race.”

With 15 Top Fuel drivers entered in the 2026 Winternationals, the bracket is loaded and unforgiving. Just like March Madness, once you make the show, every round is win-or-go-home.

“When you make the show, you’re in the Sweet 16, and every round is the same as March Madness. It’s one run at a time, one round at a time, and that is spectacular when you can go all the way to the end and hold that Wally,” Millican explains.

For Rick Ware Racing, defending a Winternationals title while simultaneously launching a championship assault raises the stakes this weekend.