U.S. Army NHRA Racing Toyota NHRA Nationals at Las Vegas Final Qualifying Report
Las Vegas – The U.S. Army driver trio of Leah Pritchett, Antron Brown and Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher fourth, 
fifth and ninth on the elimination ladder, respectively, after the final two rounds of qualifying Saturday for this weekend’s Toyota NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Schumacher and his U.S. Army Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) could not improve on his best time from Friday qualifying and slipped from fifth to ninth in the final qualifying order. His racecar was down on power during his first run today, which stopped the clocks in 3.971 seconds at 311.27 mph. His second run started well but turned into a tire-smoking 4.269-second, 193.90-mph effort. He’ll face No. 8 qualifier Scott Palmer in Sunday’s opening round of eliminations.
“It was running well – it left good, it was up on power the second run today,” said Schumacher, who’s won a record eight Las Vegas event titles and has earned a record 10 No. 1 qualifying spots. “We were down on power the previous run, just had a blower that wasn’t making any power. This time we had power, had some giddyup, started to pull and then, down track, it started to pull the tires off of it. We can slow it down. It is what it is. I’m looking forward to tomorrow. It doesn’t matter who we race. We seem to have a really good handle on Sunday-morning racing. We’ll get up and we’ll see if we can get that first-round win. We’ve got to get those points leaders. We’ve got to stop them.”
Brown and his Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR, who laid down a pair of identical runs of 3.766 seconds Friday, was almost as consistent today with runs of 3.741 seconds at 322.88 mph and 3.742 seconds at 328.22 mph. He’ll match up against No. 12 qualifier Blake Alexander in Sunday’s opening round of eliminations.
“We feel good,” said Brown, who scored his lone Las Vegas event title in 2013. “We went down four laps the last two days, a pair of 76s Friday, a pair of 74s today. We’ve got a really consistent car. That’s something to say – we can race with a package like that. We wanted to go quicker, but we were trying stuff, going back and forth to try to pick the car up. Now we have some insight on where we need to move to be really competitive tomorrow. We have lane choice first round so we’ve got to go out there and give it all we’ve got and take it from there. We’ll see if we can make this Matco Tools/U.S. Army car ‘do what it do,’ like Ray Charles says.”
Pritchett and her Pennzoil/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR made the biggest gains of the day among the U.S. Army trio. She opened with a run of 3.744 seconds at 329.02 mph and closed with her best run of the weekend, an effort of 3.731 seconds at 322.65 mph. That earned a first-round meeting Sunday against No. 13 qualifier Troy Buff.
“All things considered, it was a great day, said Pritchett, who introduced a stunning chrome paint scheme here this weekend. “The communication process is going well with our racecar, nicknamed Sylvia for the silver she gives us that makes us feel like gems. It’s been great, but of course there are a lot of awesome-running racecars here this weekend, ours included. We set out to put up a really good number that last run. We were really close to running at 3.72 and put two holes out right at the very end. But, really, there are not a lot of complaints here. Super proud of the team gearing up. There’s nothing like race day, the mindset that we get to do absolute battle. Right now we are definitely a unit of one. We are fighting strong to be able to stay as high in the points as possible and that’s all that matters. We’ll take it one round at a time.”
Sunday’s elimination rounds are set for 2 p.m. EDT with FS1’s delayed three-hour broadcast beginning at 7 p.m.
