U.S. Army NHRA Racing 56th Annual Circle K NHRA Winternationals Final Qualifying Report
The U.S. Army duo of Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher and Antron Brown will head into the 2016 NHRA Mello Yello 
Drag Racing Series’ first race day of the year having qualified third and seventh, respectively for this weekend’s 56th annual Circle K NHRA Winternationals at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, California.
Schumacher’s No. 1 run from Friday’s two Top Fuel qualifying sessions was surpassed by Steve Torrence and Doug Kalitta during Saturday’s fourth and final qualifying session of the weekend, when “The Sarge” was out to lay down a record run but smoked the tires. Schumacher and his U.S. Army Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) were fastest Friday with a run of 3.722 seconds at 323.66 mph. He opened Saturday with the second-best run of 3.751 seconds at 325.22 mph to pick up another pair of qualifying bonus points. He will face No. 14 qualifier Terry McMillen in Sunday’s opening round of eliminations.
“Man, if we just could’ve held onto that one, but it just wasn’t meant to be,” said Schumacher, who was chasing his 80th career No. 1 qualifying position to go with his 80 career Top Fuel victories. “But you know what? I’ll take tire smoke over the car shaking any day of the week. We’ve got ourselves a really good car as you saw on the first run of the day in the heat of the day. The track was ripe and ready for a record run on that last one and we honestly felt we had a solid 3.60 in the car. And I feel really good about the fact we went all out for it. That’s how championships are made and that is our style here with this U.S. Army team. That first run was definitely a feel-good run that bodes well for Sunday, a 3.75 in the heat of the day. I’ll tell you what, like I said, the car didn’t shake one bit that last run where we smoked the tires and, believe it or not, that makes me feel really good about how good of a car we have. I’m really excited for the first race day of the year.”
Brown and the Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR had a respectable run of 3.901 seconds at 307.79 mph despite running on seven cylinders, but then blew up in dramatic fashion as he crossed the finish line. His crew made the necessary repairs and the defending Top Fuel championship came back with his best run of the weekend in the final session today, an effort of 3.754 seconds at 322.73 mph that earned him a first-round meeting against DSR teammate Shawn Langdon, the No. 10 qualifier.
“After our first run of the day, that last run was the run that we really needed,” Brown said. “It got us in the right mind and our car is back to where we want it to be. It did everything we wanted it to do and the track could handle more, so we know how hard we can push. That 75 was the run we wish we would have run on the first lap but it dropped a hole on the hit and we blew up and that’s been kicking me in the butt because it did it at the hit and I just caused my guys a lot of extra work. The good part is we’ll see what we’ve got. We’re running Shawn (Langdon), which is something we don’t necessarily want to do in the first round. I think we’ll be really competitive for race day tomorrow being where we want to be at. We didn’t qualify where we did but we did a good lap that last time. It was a good lap, not a great one, and we’ve got something we can build on. Now it’s time to go to work and push hard.”
FS1’s delayed coverage of today’s qualifying is set for 1 a.m. Sunday. Elimination rounds begin at 2 p.m. Sunday with FS1 providing three hours of live coverage beginning at 5 p.m.
