U.S. Army’s Championship Season Comes to a Close
24 Hours After Schumacher Clinches His Eighth Top Fuel World Title, ‘The Sarge’ and Teammate Brown Nearly Pull Off Victory in Pomona Finale
Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher came oh-so-close in his bid to close out his 2014 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series Top Fuel world 
championship season by winning this weekend’s 50th annual Auto Club NHRA Finals, no matter how fitting it would have been.
After all, two of his record eight Top Fuel titles were capped in miraculous fashion on the final elimination runs of both the 2006 and 2007 seasons at this very same Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, California.
Sunday, however, it was back-to-back, near-record-breaking runs by team owner and part-time series competitor Morgan Lucas that eliminated Schumacher’s fellow U.S. Army driver and Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) teammate Antron Brown in the semifinals, then Schumacher himself in the Top Fuel final at Auto Club Raceway.
Some 24 hours after clinching the 2014 Top Fuel title during Saturday’s fourth and final qualifying session of the weekend, Schumacher lined up against Lucas in the Top Fuel final for a shot at putting a most appropriate exclamation point on his eighth championship. He held up his end of the bargain by clocking his fastest run of the day, crossing the finish line in 3.742 seconds at 324.98 mph. But Lucas backed up his head-turning semifinal run by sweeping past Schumacher in 3.704 seconds at 325.14 mph – the second-fastest elapsed time in NHRA history. Consequently, only Brown’s October 2012 elapsed time of 3.701 seconds at Maple Grove Raceway in Reading, Pennsylvania was better.
“It was an awesome year,” said Schumacher, who beat Larry Dixon, No. 1 qualifier Richie Crampton and J.R. Todd in today’s opening three rounds of eliminations. “You know, the guy just ran a 70 (3.70 seconds) against me. I should go wash his car or something. That’s awesome. We made it go down the track and we made it go down the track fast and, if he stumbled, we were going to beat him. But, I don’t know if we know how to make a 70, yet. So, congrats to them and, for us, a great job because we’re the world champs. For Mello Yello and the NHRA and the Safety Safari and all the people who make all of this work so well, it was a great job. It’s been an incredible Countdown (to the Mello Yello Championship) for the U.S. Army team. Outstanding, no doubt. We were in four of the six finals. You know, what it all comes down to is that this U.S. Army Racing team is so honored and takes great pride in representing the more than 1 million Soldiers who protect our freedom and our way of life. We do this every day for them and, to be back on top of the heap once again, we just can’t wait for next year to get here.”
Brown’s quest to up his series-high total of event titles for the season to a career-high seven this weekend ended with his semifinal run against Lucas, who laid down the second-fastest run in history at the time against the 2012 Top Fuel world champion. Brown and the Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR stopped the clocks in a solid 3.742 seconds at 320.74 mph, but it was no match for Lucas’ blistering run of 3.707 seconds at 325.45 mph.
“Not a bad weekend at all,” said Brown, who disposed of Clay Millican and Dom Lagana in today’s opening two rounds of eliminations. “We ran really well in qualifying. We’re really happy. This is our new package that we’ll be running next year and we definitely gained a lot of data and knowledge on it. The Matco Tools/U.S. Army boys did a heck of a job. We just lost a good drag race. We went out there and put up a solid lap like we thought we needed to win. Morgan Lucas and (crew chief) Aaron Brooks just didn’t care. They don’t care. It seems like when we go up against them, they always throw low ET of the event down on us. We just can’t seem to line up next to them at the right time and take advantage of them. They got us this time and we’ll just go to work on it.
“We’re so proud and hats off to our U.S. Army teammates for bringing that world championship home to DSR. The way they finished the year is a strong statement and we feel like we should have been right there with them in today’s final. That would have been icing on the cake to race Tony and make it an all-DSR final. It feels good that all of our teams have been working together so well and the results are showing on the track. It just makes our future look brighter and brighter for all of us. DSR won five out of the six Countdown races and Tony had a chance to win the sixth one, too. That would have been a sweet sweep for DSR to win all six Countdown races. We’ll go enjoy tomorrow’s award ceremony and then it will be right back to work at the shop this offseason. We all want to get back to our tip-top shape and come out hard to start next year.”
