Massey, Schumacher set Top Fuel tone at zMAX

NASCAR drivers Joey Logano and Martin Truex, fresh from their Samsung Mobile 500

Sprint Cup Series race last night at Texas Motor Speedway, had to go a long way to see the real racer from Fort Worth.

Spencer Massey, the friendly but fiercely competitive Texan Top Fuel driver, stunned even hard-core drag-racing fans Sunday afternoon in the first round of the Four-Wide Nationals at zMAX Dragway at Concord, N.C., with a 330.55-mph pass in the Prestone Dragster.

That is the fastest pass in the National Hot Rod Association's headliner class in the 1,000-foot era. And with that, Massey rewrote his own national speed record he set February 12 at Pomona, Calif., in the season-opener, for he already this weekend had a back-up pass to validate the number. En route to winning the Winternationals, Massey posted a 328.62-mph mark.

What made Massey's feat Sunday even more impressive is that he trumped Don Schumacher Racing mate Tony Schumacher's 330.23 before him in the round.

Schumacher, in the U.S. Army Dragster with a salute this week to the Army Reserve, set low elapsed time of the weekend with his career-best E.T. of 3.753 seconds -- and the first 330-mph run in Top Fuel history at 1,000 feet. Schumacher also was the first to run 330 mph in the quarter-mile. (The course was shortened midway through the 2008 season, following the death of Scott Kalitta during a Funny Car qualifying accident.)

Massey's Round 1 E.T. was 3.794 seconds, not as quick as Schumacher's but quicker than Steve Torrence's No. 1 qualifying time (3.799).

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