DSR ready to add More US Nationals Gold to Impressive 2015 Season

alBalooshi eager to drive Sandvik Coromant/Red Fuel Top Fuel dragster at this weekend’s U.S. Nationals event for DSR

BROWNSBURG, IN – Khalid alBalooshi knew he wanted to return to driving a Top Fuel dragster after his Alan Johnson Racing team lost financial support right before the 2015 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series but he was beginning to believe it wouldn’t happen this year.

But when an opening developed to be the driver of Don Schumacher Racing’s Sandvik Coromant/Red Fuel Top Fuel dragster at this weekend’s prestigious 61st annual NHRA U.S. Nationals, alBalooshi was ready to take advantage of the opportunity.

“I am so excited to drive again in Top Fuel,” alBalooshi said. “Especially for DSR, one of the top teams in the NHRA. I appreciate everyone, especially Don Schumacher, for picking me out of all the drivers. I’m going to try my best for the team and everyone that supports DSR.”

The seasoned racer from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, became the first Middle Eastern driver and just third driver from outside North America to win in the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series in 2012. He has four NHRA event titles in eight final round appearances in the Top Fuel category. This season, he has been competing in the Pro Mod category in NHRA and will do so at the U.S. Nationals.

The Sandvik Coromant team led by crew chief duo of Todd Okuhara and Phil Shuler have one event title (Gainesville) in 2015. The team recorded a national record speed of 332.75 mph at the last NHRA event in Brainerd, Minn.

“We’re excited that DSR was able to get a driver with Khalid’s credentials to drive our Sandvik Coromant/Red Fuel dragster in the U.S. Nationals,” team owner Don Schumacher said.

“Khalid does an outstanding job of representing NHRA drag racing and is a great international ambassador for our sport. He is a proven, versatile racer and showed that by quickly adapting to Top Fuel where he was very successful.

“It’s important to me that our Sandvik Coromant/Red Fuel team will continue to compete for wins this year. I’m excited that our team will continue and with Khalid they are more than capable of winning these last seven races.”

Matco Tools team focusses on reclaiming No. 1 position, getting popular driver second U.S. Nationals Top Fuel title

– Antron Brown is one of only two active Don Schumacher Racing drivers who have left the NHRA U.S. Nationals on Labor Day with most coveted trophy of the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season.

Teammate Tony Schumacher and the U.S. Army team owns a record nine Top Fuel titles from Lucas Oil Raceway near Indianapolis.

Antron has three NHRA trophies from the most prestigious event on the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series circuit, but his only title in Top Fuel came in 2011; the others were in 2000 and 2004 when he competed in Pro Stock Motorcycle.

It’s unlikely Antron and his Matco Tools/U.S. Army team or anyone else will match his teammate’s total of Indy wins, but there’s another achievement more attainable and more important to 2012 NHRA Top Fuel world champion and resident of Pittsboro, Ind., which is a short 15-minute drive to the Indy track.

The Matco team will begin racing Friday evening ranked second in points and trailing Schumacher by 53 points.

Winning the U.S. Nationals this year would have a big payoff for Antron and the team led by crew chiefs Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald especially if they can advance two rounds of eliminations further than their teammate on Monday to take over the points lead.

“What gets you excited is just the prestige of Indy, and our Matco boys want to leave Indy No. 1 in the standings,” said Antron, who has won 51 Mello Yello trophies.

“It’s one of those deals where winning at Indy always sticks out. You know when it happened, how it happened, who you beat and what it took to get there. Looking at things this year, we know what we have to do to succeed and we will have a good game plan heading into it”

A unique points-and-a-half points payoff during championship eliminations will make the task a bit more manageable. During eliminations, a win will pay 30 points instead of the standard 20.

“That can be huge on Monday,” he said. “That means the winner can earn 150 points on Monday instead of 100 and that’s a big difference as close as this race is.”

The U.S. Nationals is the last event of the 18-race Mello Yello regular season that determines the top-10 drivers who will contend for world championships in the six-race Countdown to the Championship playoffs that begin in two weeks at zMAX Dragway near Charlotte.

After Indy, points will be reset for championship contenders with the points leader getting a 30-point edge over No. 2 and the others separated by 10-point increments.

“There’s a lot of strategy involved and you just have to make a lot of good runs,” said Antron, whose Matco team has won four times this year. “At Indy, everybody brings their ‘A’ game and brings all their best parts. That’s what Indy brings out and that’s what makes it special.”

At the last Mello Yello event in Brainerd, Minn., Antron the Matco team became first to complete a run in less than 3.7 seconds when it went 3.680 two weeks ago to set an NHRA national record and exceed 330 mph for the first time before losing in the semifinals.

“It was just a great weekend all in all,” Antron said. “The main thing on this team is that we’re growing on every run. We want to grow from every run and if we can do that it’ll put us in the position that we need to be to go after that championship over the last six races. We’re on par for that now. We know we can run in the 3.60s.”

The Matco team led the best Top Fuel teams in the serious during testing at Indy last week with a run of 3.707 at 325.22 mph.

“You have to push the envelope and see what you’re capable of because it’s only going to pay off. If you’ve never done it and you don’t try it then it’s going to bite you in the end.”

An added bonus for the nitro teams is the fourth annual Traxxas Nitro Shootout that will pay the winning Top Fuel team a $100,000 bonus.

The Matco team is seeded No. 2 and will face J.R. Todd in Saturday’s opening round.

“It’s survival of the fittest,” Antron said. “You know you can’t make a mistake because everyone is bringing their best. Everything is so crucial and nobody is guaranteed a spot at Indy; you have to qualify to race on Monday.”

Capps ready for U.S. Nationals win with NAPA Dodge team

– Ron Capps’ bucket list of drag racing accomplishments is a very short one, but the two biggest tasks remain and he faces one of those challenges this weekend in the 61st annual NHRA U.S. Nationals.

The popular driver of Don Schumacher Racing’s NAPA AUTO PARTS 2015 Dodge Charger R/T ranks second on the all-time Funny Car win list with 44 titles in the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series and has won at 22 of 25 NHRA tracks.

But the most important one to him is not on this list, and it’s the one he will compete at this weekend near Indianapolis.

“For me as a kid growing up reading my dad’s hot rod magazines and reading about the U.S. Nationals, it’s always been the pinnacle of our sport,” he said. “It’s probably more important to me to win Indy than it is a world championship. That’s how big this race is.

“I haven’t won it yet but I know with this particular race you have to earn it. It’s why it’s the U.S. Nationals and why it is the biggest race. I love the fact that I have a great crew chief in Rahn Tobler; he’s so experienced and knowledgeable and adaptable to changing conditions.”

The NAPA AUTO PARTS Dodge, which has two wins this season, ranks sixth coming into the U.S. Nationals but is only 64 points outside of fourth.

And making the annual “Big Go” event bigger this year is a unique payoff during eliminations on Monday that will pay one-and-a-half times the points; round wins will be worth 30 points instead of the standard 20.

Indy marks the end of the 18-race regular season in the Mello Yello series that leads to the six-race Countdown to the Championship playoff that begins in two weeks near Charlotte. After Indy, the top-10 will be eligible to contend for world championships after points are reset with the No. 1 driver holding a 30-point edge over No. 2 and the rest of the field separated by 10-point increments.

“The new points system makes this the biggest U.S. Nationals ever,” he said. “It’s important to move up in the standings to gain points for when the Countdown starts and we go after the championship.”

And the world championship he has pursued the past 21 years also has been elusive; he’s been runner-up four times including once by an NHRA-record two points.

“I don’t think anyone on this team is thinking Countdown yet. Indy is such a big deal that is all we have on our minds.

“We’ve been lackluster since the Mopar Mile-High Nationals at Denver (at the end of July) while we were trying and testing some things. We dropped to sixth in points, but our goal is to win Indy first.

“I’m excited with how the test session went, how we have improved, and having the experience of Rahn Tobler to jump back in at the perfect time to peak.”

Ron and other DSR drivers joined most of the top teams in NHRA testing for two days last week at the Indy track and it was time well spent.

Ron and the NAPA team produced its all-time quickest run during the test session with a time of 3.939 seconds for the second best of the two-day session and about three-hundredths of a second quicker that they had ever gone.

“We ran 3.96 in 2012 and that was a pretty amazing run at the time. Now if you don’t run quicker than a 3.92 in qualifying you might not have lane choice come Monday. The game just got upped a lot these last few races in Funny car. The competition is the best it’s ever been, times 10. It’s going to be fun to battle.”

“It’s great to go out and run in the 3.90s and maybe even 3.80s, but come Monday race day morning, the spirits of the U.S. Nationals will throw hot temperatures and humidity at you. You don’t know.”

Hot Infinite Hero Dodge with Beckman likes view from top, intend to leave U.S. Nationals with No. 1 seed for Countdown

– Jack Beckman and Don Schumacher Racing’s Infinite Hero 2015 Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car team led by crew chief Jimmy Prock has reset the NHRA elapsed-time record twice in the past month while logging four of the five quickest runs ever in their class.

There is not a hotter team over the summer than the Infinite Hero Dodge with assistant crew chiefs John Medlen and Chris Cunningham. They have won three of the past six races. After not qualifying for the season-opener in February, the team has won five times this year to march to the No. 1 spot at the last race in Brainerd, Minn.

And they are intent on keeping it.

During a two-day session last week near Indianapolis, the team was the quickest among the best NHRA Funny Cars with a time of 3.918 seconds, just shy of the national mark the team most recently set two weeks ago at Brainerd with a time of 3.901.

But that recent history won’t carry much weight when the 61st annual NHRA U.S. Nationals at Lucas Oil Raceway about 2 miles from DSR headquarters in Brownsburg, Ind., opens Friday and winners of the “Big Go” are crowned after Monday’s championship eliminations.

Jack, who won the 2012 world championship and specialty races twice including the 2013 Traxxas Shootout at Indy, is looking to earn his first U.S. Nationals victory. He says he hears from many drivers that Indy is just another drag race, but he doesn’t buy it.

“There’s newer (tracks than Indy), there’s bigger ones out there, but when the cars start loading in for the U.S. Nationals you begin to realize it is special,” he said. “As a driver, it’s a marathon. It’s an extra day above every other race out there.”

And making the annual “Big Go” event bigger this year is a unique payoff during eliminations on Monday that will award one-and-a-half times the points; round wins will be worth 30 points instead of the standard 20.

“Not that we need any extra incentive at Indy, but it also has the Traxxas Shootout (that pays winning teams $100,000), so you have a race within a race. And now, for the first time in three decades I think, we’re back to points-and-a-half for elimination rounds. There’s a lot of different reasons that make this race so special.”

Indy marks the end of the 18-race regular season in the Mello Yello series that leads to the six-race Countdown to the Championship playoff that begins in two weeks near Charlotte. After Indy, the top-10 will be eligible to contend for world championships after points are reset with the No. 1 driver holding a 30-point edge over No. 2 and the rest of the field separated by 10-point increments.

A successful test last week was more important that what the time slips showed.

“We treated it like a true test session. We cycled back through all of our back-up parts – our second supercharger, our third supercharger, our back-up injector. So, we’ve treated it exactly as a test session, and I’m very pleased with the results.

“Right now I want to say Indy is just another race and you can tell yourself that until you’re able to win it. I hope this year I’ll get to say that it is truly a special race.”