U.S. Army NHRA Racing Texas Report, FallNationals and Carolina Nationals
Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher scored his 75th career NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series event title Saturday at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis 
in the completion of last weekend’s opening event of the 2014 NHRA Mello Yello Countdown to the Championship at zMAX Dragway near Charlotte, North Carolina. Schumacher, the driver of the U.S. Army Top Fuel Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR), defeated Khalid alBalooshi in the Charlotte final round to earn the Top Fuel points lead for the first time since July 2013.
While the trophy may read Charlotte, the victory was earned today at the Texas Motorplex, the site of Schumacher’s first Top Fuel victory in 1999. NHRA officials called last week’s Pep Boys Carolina Nationals after the first round of Top Fuel eliminations because of rain.
Schumacher displayed a level of engineering and teamwork reflective of the U.S. Army’s leading-edge technology and the powerful, realistic training of its Army Strong Soldiers to close out his Charlotte weekend by advancing to the final round with wins today over Billy Torrence in the quarterfinals and DSR teammate Spencer Massey in the semifinals. In the Charlotte final, he defeated alBalooshi to earn his third event title of the season with a lap of 3.866 seconds at 318.77 mph.
“It couldn’t have come at a better time,” Schumacher said. “This is the first race of the Countdown even though we had to move it to Dallas. It really doesn’t matter, it was just harder to keep yourself up for it. It’s a difficult thing to do. You run first round at a racetrack and then you have to wait a week to run the next round. It took the same mental, emotional and physical strength displayed by our U.S. Army Soldiers and it played a huge part in our drive to be successful today. We took over the points lead. I don’t even know where we are but we’re in the lead. If we can maintain and stay ahead of these guys for five more races, I think we have the car – I don’t think, I know – that we have the car capable of doing it. We’ll have to see what happens, but we will definitely be there to force the issue.”
Schumacher, who began this year’s Countdown seeded fourth in the readjusted Top Fuel standings, assumed the points lead as the top three drivers in the initial Countdown standings – Doug Kalitta, DSR and U.S. Army teammate Antron Brown, and Shawn Langdon – all lost their first-round matchups Sunday at Charlotte.
Meanwhile, today’s Charlotte quarterfinal and semifinal sessions served as third- and fourth-round qualifying for Sunday’s elimination rounds of the 29th annual AAA Texas NHRA Fall Nationals.
Schumacher and his U.S. Army Dragster will line up sixth in Sunday’s elimination brackets. He’ll face Leah Pritchett in the first round.
“We have a great U.S. Army car,” Schumacher said. “We went down the track faster than anybody. We know how to get down the track. We can probably scurry down both lanes but we knew it was important enough to stay in that left lane. That changes the way as a driver that you stage the car. It changes the importance of reaction time versus keeping that car thin and going for the low ET (elapsed time) so you can stay in that lane. We knew it was going to be important. We are just going to go out and do our best. That’s all we can do. All we can do is be machine-like and try to take two trophies home in one weekend.”
Brown and the Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster dropped from second to sixth in the post-Charlotte Top Fuel standings.
The 2012 Top Fuel world champion turned in Texas qualifying runs Saturday of 3.874 seconds at 316.45 mph and 3.951 seconds at 291.57 mph and landed the 13th spot for Sunday’s Fall Nationals opening round of elimination, where he’ll meet Shawn Langdon.
“Definitely a good day today, especially in in the heat,” Brown said. “It gives us a boost going into tomorrow for race day. We have a really good racecar, and it’s going to be a really good first-round matchup tomorrow. All of us are looking forward to that challenge. It’s going to be a good one. We’re going to have some fun, and we’re going to get back there in the championship fight.
