The fast and the fabulous
Funny car (Photo by Chadwick Fowler) Travis Shumake races into Dallas for Stampede of Speed RICH LOPEZ | Staff writer rich@dallasvoice.com Drag racing certainly isn’t what it used to be; now it’s is all about lip-syncing for your lives and sissying that walk.
But wait …. This isn’t about THAT Drag Race. Staging lanes (Photo by Tyler Larkey) Travis Shumake is reclaiming the term drag race and taking it old school.
As the first openly gay driver in the National Hot Rod Association, Shumake has broken any rainbow ceiling hot rodding may have had, and to keep it broken, he’s also now the first openly gay owner of a professional American motorsports team. “The LGBTQ+ community has a place in motorsports,” Shumake declared in a recent interview. “In the stands, behind the wheel and, now, in the owner’s box.” At the time of this interview, Shumake said he was having a hard time believing where he was sitting right at the moment: “I’m inside the lounge of my new semi-truck and trailer.
This is crazy to me. Every day is a new ‘wow’ moment. Today’s probably my favorite day of my life,” he said. Shumake, 38 and based in New York, will be in North Texas this weekend to compete with his team in the Texas Fall Nationals Stampede of Speed at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis.
