PRO STOCK BIKE

Reggie Showers didn't leave anything out of his U.S. Nationals performance, recording his first NHRA victory, capturing the K&N Filters Pro Bike Klash, and pocketing a total of $40,000 for the event.

The double-amputee from Philadelphia got $15,000 for beating fellow Suzuki rider Shawn Gann in the eliminations final. (He ran a 7.264-second e.t. at 181.40 on his Prosthetic Design bike to Gann's 7.232/188.04.) That gave him the $10,000 Bike Klash bonus, in addition to his $15,000 earnings from the 13th annual specialty race.

This Showers was as relentless as those that washed out much of the original weekend of racing and pushed NHRA's marquee event back a week. He earned his first NHRA victory of any kind by eliminating defending Klash champion Craig Treble, top qualifier Shawn Gann, and finally NHRA Powerade points leader Geno Scali.

Then in the U.S. Nationals, Showers advanced with round-victories over Treble and Scali and a second-round holeshot win over defending champion Angelle Savoie, to whom he was runner-up in his career-first final round June 1 at Chicago.

Showers still was fifth in points, but he whittled No. 4 Antron Brown's lead from 51 to 11 with four more bike appearances among the remaining six national events.

He credited crew chief George Bryce and Star Racing for the success he had so long envisioned. He said he has started writing down his goals. He did it at Brainerd, daring to dream of qualifying No. 1. He did, for the first time ever. So he tried it again here.

"Last weekend in my truck," he said of his latest contract to himself, "I signed it last Friday at 5:35 p.m. And one of the objectives was I will win the K&N Klash. The other was I will win the whole U.S. Nationals."

The victories represent a new attitude.

"For a long time, I've known my place," Showers said. "My place has been to qualify maybe in the bottom half of the field, occasionally get in the top half and maybe luck up and win a race. But I didn't think we had the domination or the experience to win an NHRA national event. Finally we broke through. This is for all the opportunities that are going to come."

He said this year's competitors are the toughest in the bike class' history and therefore it is even more gratifying that "my first national-event victory wasn't at Brainerd or Reading or Englishtown. It was Indy. We won our first race, and this is the one to win. This is too cool."

TOP FUEL

Tony Schumacher made a cool $75,000 for winning the Top Fuel title at Indianapolis for the third time in the last four years. But he also made history, joining Joe Amato, Gary Beck, Don Garlits and Don Prudhomme as the only drivers to win the U.S. Nationals more than twice.

He did it by driving the U.S. Army Dragster to a career-best 4.498-second elapsed time at 328.54 miles an hour, beating Darrell Russell's 4.613/290.19 in the Bilstein Engine Flush Dragster that Amato owns. "My quickest run ever, and I saved it for last," he said, as if he surprised even himself.

Schumacher first eliminated John Smith with a blistering 4.519-second elapsed time at a track speed record 327.59 miles an hour. Then he dropped red-hot Kalitta cousins Doug and Scott in the Mac Tools Dragsters by identical .026-second victory margins to advance to the finals. Doug is closest to derailing Larry Dixon's quest for a second straight Top Fuel crown, and two-time champion Scott qualified No. 2 in ending a six-year hiatus from the sport.

"The best part was it was a great race. Nobody smoked the tires," Schumacher said.

He and Russell are close friends -- they've even jumped out of airplanes and parachuted together under U.S. Army supervision. He told Russell before the final round, "If I win Indy, it's a great day for me. But if I don't, just realize you just won Indy and it's a good day. I want to win it more than anything in the world. And you want to beat everybody, but you want to beat your buddies more."

Schumacher and "The Sarge" weren't in command all weekend, though. "I was a little disappointed in the qualifying," the Long Grove, Ill., driver said. "We were running mid-50s every run, which is great, but there were people still running four- or five-hundredths faster, So to come out here and have low e.t. for four runs in a row, that is 100 percent owed to the team. That is just unbelievable for a team to do that."

He said he was inspired by his mother Susann, who died this past March. "It was her birthday Friday, and I thought about that when I was staging the car, and I went out and ran good. She rode with me today, and she went on a fast one. She was probably screaming all the way." He gave his winner's trophy to her the first time he won at Indianapolis, in 2000, in the debut race for "The Sarge."

Schumacher, who won for the second time this season and this first time since June 1 at Joliet, Ill., is in fourth place, 44 points behind No. 3 Russell but 612 away from leader Dixon, who lost in the second round to Kenny Bernstein.