U.S. Army Duo Kicks Off Western Swing at 34th Annual Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals
MORRISON, CO – Amidst the rarified air of Bandimere Speedway just west of Denver, it’s time this weekend for the U.S. Army Top Fuel 
Dragster duo of Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher and Antron Brown to elevate their games to the 5,000-foot-plus level as the 34th annual Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals kick off the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series’ traditional Western Swing.
Getting the most out of their 10,000-horsepower racing machines becomes the challenge this weekend for Schumacher and Brown, as is the case each year when the NHRA competitors set up shop at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. And getting the most out of their respective Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) teams is the challenge during this always-grueling three-week stretch that also includes stops at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway and Pacific Raceways on the outskirts of Seattle.
But Schumacher and Brown know all too well that only the strongest wear the colors they do, and the U.S. Army Soldiers they proudly represent possess a mental, emotional and physical strength like no other. Like it does each race weekend each year, the U.S. Army Racing team looks to continue reflecting those strengths as it navigates its way through this latest Western Swing.
Not surprisingly, both Schumacher and Brown have enjoyed the ultimate success during the Denver-Sonoma-Seattle stretch in the schedule. Schumacher, the seven-time Top Fuel world champion, swept all three events in 2008 while Brown, the defending Top Fuel world champion, did the same in 2009. Brown also is the defending Top Fuel event titlist at scenic Bandimere Speedway, having beaten Brandon Bernstein in last year’s final, and he was runner-up to Schumacher in 2008 to go with three other runner-up finishes in the Pro Stock Motorcycle class.
Schumacher heads to Denver looking to regain the Top Fuel points lead he held after eight of the season’s opening 13 events. He stands just one point behind Shawn Langdon of Al Anabi Racing after his first-round exit at Norwalk, Ohio, two weekends ago, which came just one week after his series-co-leading third event title of the season on his hometown track just outside Chicago. With seven final-round appearances in his 16 career Mile-High Nationals, Bandimere Speedway this weekend is an ideal place for Schumacher to try and regain his command of the Top Fuel standings with five events to go before the Countdown to the Championship playoffs begin in September at zMAX Dragway just outside Charlotte, N.C.
Picturesque Bandimere Speedway is also a more-than-welcome setting for Brown and his Matco Tools/U.S. Army Top Fuel Dragster teammates to try and mount a strong charge toward the Countdown. He holds down the fifth spot in the standings with a hefty 321-point advantage over 11th-place Brandon Bernstein, but is looking to begin locking down one of the 10 precious Countdown berths this weekend with the kind of form that earned event titles this season at Gainesville, Fla., and Commerce, Ga., and a final-round appearance against Schumacher at Las Vegas.
TONY “THE SARGE” SCHUMACHER, driver of the U.S. Army Top Fuel Dragster:
It’s time for the annual Western Swing, and you find yourself this year in the midst of a pretty exciting points battle with Shawn Langdon. What’s it like to see the lead see-saw back and forth the way it has, so far?
“Well, it’s been tough the last couple of years. There are just a number of good cars. Lately, there are five or six really good cars, whereas maybe the beginning of the year, or even last year, there were eight or nine. It’s not that they’re not all good cars, it’s just that there are five that have been finding a way to win. The fact is, not just in our pits, but all through the paddock, the level of engineering and teamwork on display at the racetrack is reflective of the Army’s leading-edge technology and the powerful, realistic training of its Army Strong Soldiers. Every team out there, it seems, has found a way to step up its game and keep it there. The tuneups, we’ve had a little more time with them. And like I’ve said lately, the silly season hasn’t happened the last couple of years. The teams have stayed together with the drivers and crew chiefs, even the sponsors. We just had more time to get closer, and the racing has been great. If I was a fan, and I am, if I was paying money to see a race, I would want to come to an NHRA race right now. Anybody can go out and do a great job. I got beat two weeks ago by someone I grew up watching, the first guy I ever had a T-shirt from, the ‘Golden Greek’ (Chris Karamesines). He went out and ran a 3.95. I got beat. Qualified phenomenally but got my butt handed to me. You don’t wake up in the morning on Sunday, no matter who you’re racing, and feel confident. Man, there are some great cars out there.”
For as many years as you’ve been racing at the highest level, you’re always quick to say that you never stop learning. What have you learned this season?
“That’s a really good question. Each year I find that, being around great people, I love driving a Top Fuel dragster because of the nine people who work on my car. It is a great car, scary car, goes very fast. But what makes it great is when they say, ‘Here we go, we’re going to start the car,’ I can look at those nine guys and know they’re capable of that moment. If I had to start my car with my five high school friends working on it, it would be terrifying. I’ve eliminated, ‘We have a problem,’ and I’ve changed it to, ‘a situation.’ If you don’t have a parachute on, that’s a problem. If you run a racecar at 300 mph with my five friends from high school working on it, I have a problem. When I show up at a race, there are obstacles and adversity we have to get through. But because of those nine guys, it’s just a situation, something we have to figure out and accomplish. It’s a very different situation. I tell kids and I tell people, almost never have I used the words, ‘I’ve got a problem,’ and in three days, the situation is gone. It’s fixed because the people I’m surrounded by are capable of fixing it. It’s like that in any job. If you’re a boss of any company, anywhere, it’s good advice. If you hire the wrong people, it’s possible you’re going to have some problems. If you put the people in place who are good at producing the results, which is your job as a boss to hire the right people, you put yourself in a situation, not a problem. If I see something coming, it’s ‘Wow, this is something we have to get through. I know we have people who can do it.’ It’s calmed me down a lot this year.”
Denver is one of those places that has been really good to you over the years. What are your overall thoughts about racing at Bandimere Speedway this weekend?
“I can just look back and think about the absolute lack of bad memories I have there. It’s zero. There are no bad memories, from the Harley rides, to the fly fishing to the beautiful golf courses, and John Bandimere’s built us a beautiful racetrack, tucked into a mountain. You just can’t get enough of it and I really enjoy it. It’s a difficult race because you have to make horsepower in a set of circumstance that doesn’t really apply well to a Top Fuel Dragster. But, at the end of the day on Sunday, there’s a winner and you just have to be the guy who not necessarily sets a world record, but goes faster than everybody else. We’ve been fortunate enough to do that. We love going to Bandimere, we love going to Denver, and I just can’t wait to get there.”
What are the effects on the U.S. Army Dragster when it comes to racing at altitude in Denver as opposed to racing in a place like Gainesville, Fla.?
“When you’re at sea level, like Gainesville, there’s more air. You walk outside and you can just flat breathe. You don’t get tired as easily. It’s the same thing with the car. In Denver, you’re starving the engine for fuel, and you can’t add as much fuel. What it takes to go fast is, the more nitromethane you can stuff into the motor, the faster you can go. The more air you have, the more nitro you can put to it. The blowers we have, which are basically like an air compressor sitting on top of the engine, they can only work so hard. They can only spin so fast. We’re not spinning them slower because we’re in a place like Gainesville, we’re trying to make more power and go faster. What happens in Denver is, you get up high in the mountains and your car’s having a hard time breathing. You’re having a hard time breathing and so is your car, so your car’s just going to run slower. All the cars are equal as far as that goes. We’re all starving for air, and the air’s the same in both the right lane and the left lane. It takes a good crew chief and a good driver to figure it out. The right combination for the right moments.”
ANTRON BROWN, driver of the Matco Tools/U.S. Army Top Fuel Dragster:
It’s been a crazy season for you as you’re defending your 2012 world championship. You’ve won two events, but you’ve also suffered first-round losses at five of the last six events. How has this rollercoaster ride been for you and the team?
“It’s been one of those deals where we’ve just been fixing issues, different problems, different gremlins biting us. I guess from running so many laps that we do from the previous years and testing, we’re finally seeing some other things we’ve been working on biting us. The luck has been going the other way this year. We’ve just been attacking it with a lot of hard work, keeping our head down. We’re not going to quit. We saw some light at Chicago, which was two races ago, where we made it to the semifinals. The last race we went out and we went through all the rounds in qualifying. Definitely at the turning point. Lost a close first-round matchup against (Khalid) alBalooshi. The Western Swing, with the three races in a row, has always been real good to us. We go out to Denver, do well. Sonoma, we win a lot. We pulled off a sweep back in ’09 in Seattle. Our idea is to get out to the Western Swing and turn everything around and be ready for the Countdown and, hopefully, we can use this Western Swing to get back on the positive side of things.”
You swept the Western Swing back in 2009. Where do you rate that as far as your accomplishments? How important is the Western Swing as you approach the Countdown to the title?
“When you go out on the Western Swing, it gets everybody in gear. Playtime is over. Everybody is really buckled down. They start finalizing what they’re going to run in the Countdown, whether it’s clutch disc or anything like that. Getting to the nitty-gritty. When you’re talking about the team and the driver, the crew chief wants to get in the groove and get that symmetry going. After the Western Swing, we have Brainerd, then we have the U.S. Nationals, then right after that we’re right into the Countdown. This Western Swing can build you some momentum and give you some confidence. When you go into those races, you’re ready to be in attack mode, for sure. The Western Swing is a big, big part of that.”
What might be the differences between the three tracks that make up the Western Swing? And what is it that made it possible for you to win all three in a row back in 2009?
“We came real close to doing that again last year. The thing about it is, all three tracks are different. There’s nothing alike about them. When you go to Denver, Denver is all by itself. It’s the only racetrack we race at a high altitude where it’s hard for our nitro cars to make power. You’re using 30 percent of your power at Denver. That makes it tough on the crew chiefs. You have less oxygen, so you can’t burn as much fuel. You have to cut the fuel back. You cut the fuel back, you have less power. It can get hot up there. When it gets hot up there, it makes it even worse. Then you go from a place where you can’t make power to Sonoma, where you’re at sea level, back to making killer power because you’re at sea level, and it also gets cool out there because you’re by the ocean. You have to make good power. You have nighttime qualifying at Sonoma, when you can get close to setting the ET record, run some mid- to low-70s (3.70 seconds) on Friday night. Then you leave Sonoma, where you have great conditions, and go up to Seattle, where you’re still close to sea level. But Seattle gets hot that time of year. It gets humid, muggy. You’re not halfway in-between them (Denver and Sonoma), but you come to a racetrack where you’re racing almost like at a, I would say, a Bristol, Tenn., or something like that, where you get decent air, good air, but then it gets muggy. So you have three different environments. What makes it even more taxing is that our crew guys are driving from track to track, out there working. It’s like a marathon of races where you have to maintain, not to be worn out and try to stay upbeat, keep your mind right and focus while you’re being tired and trying to get the job done because it’s back-to-back-to-back. That’s what makes the Western Swing so grueling, all the climate changes. Then, the car for the crew chiefs to tune them, then for all your crew members, the drivers and the crew chiefs, what they go through mind and body getting accustomed to all the conditions, too. Then trying to put all that together and maintain focus and do your job on Sunday and get those round wins. It makes it taxing and grueling to win the Western Swing, almost impossible. Yet we were able to get it done back in ’09.”
