While Schumacher was consistently strong in his Kelso Electrical entry, it came down to the final race of the series, a one-hour enduro at Sydney Motorsport Park on Sunday, to decide the 2017 champion.

Behind the wheel of his Class C Lotus Exige, Schumacher had to deal with stiff competition and a rapidly diminishing fuel supply as he entered the final stages of the race.

But he managed to make it to the finish line, his 12^th placing giving him a Class C victory and earning him enough points to be crowned outright series champion.

“A lot of time, money and effort has gone into it from a lot of people. It’s pretty good to have a Bathurst guy take out a state championship,” Schumacher said.

“This is my first season to jump in a race car and have a full season ... so I’m pretty happy, it’s a bit of a fairy tale to be honest.

“A year ago when I first purchased the car and started doing a bit of work on it and looked to go racing, I never thought I would stand on the podium once, let alone take out the entire championship.”

Heading into the final round of the championship, Schumacher held a 24-point lead over Glenn Townsend in the battle for outright honours. 

“It was tight considering a one-hour endurance race has a total 40 points for a win and a sprint race has a total of 18 points for a win,” the Bathurst driver explained.

In Saturday’s pair of 30-minute sprint races, he picked up a first and second in class with 13^th and 16^th outright placings to keep his hopes of winning the championship alive.

It then came down to the one-hour enduro.

“I didn’t get off to the best start and Glenn Townsend and [class rival] Jeff Morton were out in front,” he said.

“Before we went into the pit stop I was able to get in front of both of those, but whilst we were having our pit stop we had a little technical altercation which cost us a few more seconds than we expected.

“When we headed back out on track Jeff Morton was back in front of us because he had a good pit stop. Within the last 20 minutes I just put the foot to the floor, concentrated and we were able to mow him back down.”

With six laps remaining Schumacher was back in front of Morton, but there was more drama to come.

The Bathurst driver realised he was running low on fuel.

“We calculated how much fuel we were expecting to use for the race based on previous experience and what we thought would get to the end,” he said.

“Usually you’ll find there’s a safety car in a one-hour endurance race and we factored that in, but there were no major incidents so the safety car didn’t come out and it was full tilt for the full hour.

“The last lap we nearly ran out of fuel, the car was coughing.

“It was 100 percent empty, we crossed the start-finish line and turned the car off because the gauge was showing zero. It was very lucky, if there was an extra lap we wouldn’t have made it.”