U.S. Army NHRA Racing AAA Insurance NHRA Midwest Nationals at St. Louis Friday Qualifying Report
The U.S. Army driver trio of Leah Pritchett, Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher and Antron Brown are fifth, sixth and 
ninth on the provisional ladder, respectively, after the opening two rounds of qualifying Friday for this weekend’s seventh annual AAA Insurance NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series Midwest Nationals at Gateway Motorsports Park just outside of St. Louis.
Schumacher and his U.S. Army Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing, a two-time St. Louis winner, opened the day with a run of 3.778 seconds at 324.83 mph, the second-best of the session, and collected a pair of qualifying points. “The Sarge” and Clay Millican were the final two cars in Friday’s night session and Schumacher posted a lap of 3.762 seconds at 328.06 mph to land in the sixth spot.
“We made two really good runs today,” said Schumacher. “This U.S. Army car continues to get better and better. You just look at how close everyone is right now. There are some guys that can really fast in these night sessions and we’re not quite there yet. The weather looks like we’ll have a couple more good chances tomorrow. We were able to get a couple qualifying points today, but the guys in front of us got points too. The goal tomorrow is to get more qualifying points and continue getting this U.S. Army machine ready for Sunday.”
Brown returned to the banks of the Mississippi River looking to regain his mastery of Gateway Motorsports Park aboard the Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR. The five-time AAA Insurance NHRA Midwest Nationals Top Fuel winner started fast getting right down the track and posting a solid first lap of 3.794 seconds at 321.81 mph, which was fifth overall. The three-time Top Fuel world champion came back in the second session looking to climb the ladder, but he lost a cylinder as soon as he started his run and was forced to power down the track on seven cylinders resulting in a pass of 3.961 seconds at 291.82 mph.
“We always love being in St. Louis,” said Brown. “We had a fast car right off the trailer, but it wasn’t quite as fast as we were hoping. A 3.79 wasn’t bad, but we were shooting for something closer to 3.77 (seconds). We had it tuned up for a big run in Q2, but we dropped a hole as soon as we hit the throttle. That wasn’t something we were expecting in this dry air, but we’ve got two more laps tomorrow. There are more points to chase and we’re just going to get after it. We feel confident we can run something in the low 3.70s tomorrow and move ourselves up in the field.”
Pritchett, a two-time winner this year, took the Papa John’s Pizza/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR down the track twice Friday opening with a run of 3.872 seconds at 308.57 mph. Crew chief Tod Okuhara went to work between sessions and put a stout machine on the track enabling Pritchett to make a run of 3.761 seconds at 325.69 mph to jump up to the second position. Three competitors would eclipse her pass during the rest of the session, dropping her to fifth.
The final two qualifying sessions are set for 4 and 6:30 p.m. EDT Saturday. FS1 will broadcast hours of live eliminations coverage beginning at 2 p.m.
