Hearty Effort for Army Duo in the Heartland

Schumacher Continues To Make Strides with U.S. Army Dragster While Brown Motors His Way to Top Fuel Final in Return to Topeka

Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher and the U.S. Army Top Fuel Dragster team for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) left this weekend’s 28th annual NHRA Kansas Nationals at Heartland Park Topeka feeling like they made great strides in prepping their 10,000-horsepower machine for a run to a ninth world championship in 2016.

A narrow, second-round loss in Sunday’s elimination rounds to did not put a damper on an otherwise workmanlike weekend for the U.S. Army team, which qualified fifth after four solid runs on Friday and Saturday and another stellar run in today’s opening round.

Meanwhile, fellow U.S. Army driver Antron Brown and the Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR continued its hot streak of late, reaching today’s Top Fuel final against an even hotter Doug Kalitta, who scored his third consecutive event title and widened his lead in the standings.

Schumacher started his day unchallenged in his opening-round matchup against No. 12 qualifier Luigi Novelli, who shut down before entering the staging area. Nonetheless, “The Sarge” laid down solid run of 3.748 seconds at 327.900 mph and was ready to dig in for a long day of competition.

But in the second round, he was clipped at the finish line by one-thousandth of a second at the hands of No. 4 qualifier Richie Crampton and was not able to take advantage of an ever-improving U.S. Army racing machine the rest of the day.

“The good news is, we finally have the consistent tuneup to win races and we feel really good about that,” said Schumacher, who was looking to score his second career Topeka event title to go with the one he won in 2010. “Now, we just need the confidence to go for more because that is what we’ll need to do to not only win rounds, but to win events. The only good things about being under-target with our setup is that it gets us down racetracks on a consistent basis, which will build confidence, and that will grow in to the confidence we will need to win races. It’s cyclical and we’re just about there.”

Brown, the No. 8 qualifier, began his day with his best run of the weekend, an effort of 3.723 seconds at 319.820 mph that disposed of No. 9 qualifier J.R. Todd, who crossed the finish line in 3.767 seconds at 322.960 mph. That earned a second-round matchup against No. 1 qualifier Brittany Force, who Friday night set a national elapsed time record of 3.676 seconds on the Heartland Park Topeka (Kansas) track in ideal conditions. Against Brown today, Force spun her tires and coasted across the line in 5.560 seconds at 115.160 mph while Brown got down the track in 3.753 seconds at 315.640 mph.

In the Top Fuel semifinals, Crampton smoked his tires at the start against Brown, who earned the win with a run of 3.784 seconds at 313.950 mph and the final-round meeting against Kalitta, who beat Brown in the semifinals at Atlanta Dragway last weekend.

Today’s final turned into a pedalfest as both drivers did their best to recover from smoking tires at the start. Kalitta prevailed in a still close race to the finish, crossing the line in 5.452 seconds at 238.850 mph to Brown’s 5.687 seconds at 298.600 mph.

“It’s not what we wanted, for sure,” said Brown, who is still seeking his first career Topeka event title but did become only the ninth driver in history to reach 100 career Top Fuel finals. “The track looked like it was going to be better and we went up there, we weren’t trying to run slow, we were definitely trying to run harder. I was trying to give it all I had but we just hit it a little bit earlier than they did and I just tried to collect it and couldn’t keep my car straight enough in the groove to get back into it sooner. To lose by two-tenths is disappointing because we work so hard for this, we really just wanted to bring it home. All in all, these last five races have been good. We’ve been to the semifinals or better and we just need to keep plugging. We’ll go back to work and get ready for our next race.”

After eight rounds of the 24-event NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series for 2016, the top-10 drivers the Top Fuel standings are:

1. Doug Kalitta (710 points)

2. Antron Brown (615 points, -95)

3. Brittany Force (580 points, -130)

4. Steve Torrence (557 points, -153)

5. J.R. Todd (440 points, -270)

Clay Millican (440 points, -270)

7. Richie Crampton (418 points, -292)
8. Tony Schumacher (403 points, -307)

9. Shawn Langdon (346 points, -364)
10. Terry McMillen (325 points, -385)

Next up is the fourth annual NHRA New England Nationals June 3-5 at New England Dragway in Epping, New Hampshire, where Schumacher and the U.S. Army team brought home the event title each of the last two years. FS1’s three-hour, same-day-delayed broadcast of Sunday’s elimination rounds is set for 4 p.m. EDT.