All teams make promises before a season begins. Everyone has goals for 2008. But less than two months have passed since the season opener of the NHRA POWERade Series in Pomona, and in the three races since, some promises look primed to be broken. Others are well on their way to fulfillment.

Tony Schumacher

Take Tony Schumacher, for instance. Schumacher has held off a host of formidable talent to hang on to the NHRA POWERade Series world championship title in Top Fuel since 2004 (he also won the championship in 1999). His goal? Championship ring number six.

Of his 43 wins, only one has been at the next stop on the tour, Houston (2005). The NHRA POWERade Series stops at Houston Raceway Park for the O’Reilly NHRA Spring Nationals presented by Pennzoil March 28-30. The event is the fourth of 24 in the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series, the world’s fastest motorsport.

“We’re going to need to try some different parts to get back ahead because everyone is right there with us," Schumacher said after his recent win. "There were a lot of good cars and a lot of people running equal to us, and every round [in Gainesville] was a battle. We really had to earn this one. I look at this trophy and it’s a nice one, and we had really difficult cars to beat, and it was one of the [tougher] ones to earn.”

Schumacher is the only driver to win multiple titles so far this season, reaching the winner’s circle in Pomona and Gainesville in his U.S. Army dragster. He holds a 52-point lead over Phoenix winner Larry Dixon, who sits in the second spot entering Houston. Schumacher’s is obviously a formidable stable, and with coveted tuner Alan Johnson at the lead, it’s no wonder his is the first ride to win more than one event this year. But there’s plenty of talent still at the table and 21 events between the best drag racers in the world and the final win light of the year. And 52 points is a little less than three rounds of competition.

Robert Hight

Funny Car and Pro Stock have had three different winners in three races. Robert Hight (Pomona), Jack Beckman (Phoenix), and Tony Pedregon (Gainesville) have outlasted the others in what’s been called the most competitive field in NHRA Funny Car history. Of the three, Hight and his Auto Club Ford Mustang hold the points lead. Beckman and Pedregon’s brother Cruz are second and third, and Pedregon is fourth.

In Pro Stock, the story is much the same. The expected duel between the Jegs and Summit Racing Equipment camps has come to fruition yet again, and Jeg Coughlin (Jegs.com Chevy Cobalt) and Greg Anderson (Summit Racing Pontiac GXP) have one win each. Veteran racer V. Gaines pulled off a stunner in Phoenix.

Pro Stock Motorcycle’s drama has just begun with one race in the books. In Gainesville, Northern California’s Matt Guidera proved his Mohegan Sun Rocklin Motorsports Buell the one to beat, turning in a blistering 6.922-second run in qualifying and winning the event with a 6.949, 191.54 after leaving on three-time NHRA POWERade Series world champion Andrew Hines.