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BY ELIZABETH LIBERATORE / PHOTOS BY CLAUDIA JOHNSTONE

SWITCHING LANES

Drag racer Travis Shumake is following in his father’s funny car footsteps

Travis Shumake, son of legendary drag racer Tripp Shumake, grew up in Central Phoenix doing what he considered to be average kid things – walking around the pits, talking to famous drivers, standing on the starting line, and getting interviewed on live TV. “I do remember when [my dad] was inducted to the Arizona Racing Hall of Fame hearing the crowd at Manzanita Speedway go wild and thinking that was pretty exciting for him and an awakening for me,” Shumake says. It was these childhood experiences that illuminated his path

early in life. And until he was old enough to actually venture down that road, he wrote about it incessantly in school. “I Want to be a Funny Car Driver was the title of pretty much every paper I wrote as a kid,” Shumake says. His drag racing career never took flight beyond his schoolwork writings, however. The furthest he got was go-kart racing, which he did for years with his dad at the Phoenix Kart Racing Association before his dad passed in 1999. “I started to realize I was gay in the year leading up to his passing. When he died, I took a hard turn from drag racing into competitive cheerleading. Quite the switch, but I needed to express myself, and backflips and toe touches were my escape,” he says. Shumake went on to have a successful, 15-year-long career in competitive cheerleading and coaching. His list of accomplishments includes coaching the Chaparral High School cheer team to two national championship titles in the same year. He also served as the director of development of one n ten, a nonprofit serving LGBTQIA+ youth and young adults in the Valley. Currently, he works for the Sigma Chi Foundation.

A Path of His Own

When the pandemic first blanketed the world in March 2020, it put a lot into perspective for many. Shumake included. He suddenly and very persistently wanted to travel down that life path he only used to write about as a boy. At the beginning of 2021, he put pen to paper (one last time) on how to do that. “My plan started as a single PowerPoint slide that ended up being 67 slides long! [It included] a timeline, business model, and a support team around me to get me on the track,” he says. That PowerPoint and all its components figuratively and literally got Shumake on track after a 22-year hiatus. From mental training to sponsorship meetings and testing to licensing processes, this past year was a whirlwind of preparation for Shumake, to say the least. It also didn’t leave him unscathed. In November 2021, Shumake experienced a catastrophic crash two hours after his final licensing pass when he covered the drag strip in 3.96 seconds at 309 mph. He hit a wall at 298 mph, resulting in two broken bones, a destroyed half million-dollar race car, and, more importantly in Shumake’s eyes, a shattered heart. Wounded spiritually and physically post-crash, Shumake recalled advice from his dad: “Get back in the driver’s seat when things go wrong.” “Even with a racing pedigree and the best equipment and coaches, I am a human who made a mistake. The ribs healed much quicker than the brain and heart, but I know my dad would have owned his mistake and gotten back in the seat just like I am,” he says. All the blood, sweat, and tears will culminate next month when Shumake makes his debut as the first openly gay driver to compete at the National Hot Rod Association, the highest level of any professional motorsport. He will drive on the same track at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park that his father – who was the first funny car driver to do so – did 39 years ago. “All my racing memories are at this track; it is home for me. Being strapped into an 11,000-horsepower car and pulled through the same staging lanes as my dad is going to be very emotional for me,” he says.

Building Resilience

Shumake is doing two things for professional drag racing as an openly gay man. First, he’s using his position of privilege as the son of a drag racing icon with skin in the game to keep the door propped open for other diverse drivers to walk through. Second, he’s challenging the stereotype that drag racing is a conservative sport full of unwelcoming folks. “[The latter] is not true. I have been embraced, celebrated, and supported by the sport, the drivers, and fans since day one,” Shumake says. Nonetheless, being the “first” of anything can often create self-imposed pressure. “I don’t want to let my dad down. I don’t want to embarrass my family. I don’t want to set back gay racers.” A way he combatted these internal negative whispers came after his November accident, persevering to strap back into the driver’s seat. “I faced the music early in my career. I ripped that band-aid and am stronger and more resilient for it,” he says. While Shumake represents a more inclusive future for drag racing and sister sports, like NASCAR, he doesn’t want his sexuality to take center stage. Instead, he wants the focus to be on his driving. “At the end of the day, gays in racing is good for the sport, the sponsors, and the fans. Hopefully, after a season or two, we are just talking about my reaction times and championships, not my boyfriend.” Learn more at www.travisshumake.com.