A ‘Home Game’ at NHRA New England Nationals for U.S. Army Duo

EPPING, NH – As the U.S. Army driver duo of Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher and Antron Brown navigate the 24-event NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series schedule each year, every race can be considered a home game since they all take place on American soil.

Yet, there’s one event, still the newest one on the calendar, that can be considered a home game for the U.S. Army above all the others – the NHRA New England Nationals that takes place for the fifth time this weekend at New England Dragway in Epping, New Hampshire.

That’s because the city of Boston, just an hour’s drive south of New England Dragway, is one of the sites where the first Continental Army was assembled for the purpose of protecting our nation from impending invasion by the British back in 1775.

How fitting that Schumacher and Brown between them have won the last three New England Nationals and return this weekend in hopes of making it four in a row.

The eight-time Top Fuel world-champion Schumacher and his U.S. Army Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) scored back-to-back wins in Epping in 2014 and 2015, the first en route to his latest title and the second to put the ultimate exclamation point on a magical weekend during which he and Brown and their respective teams celebrated the U.S. Army’s 240th birthday. The scene in victory lane after Schumacher’s 2015 event title was a particularly emotional one as the famed Continental Color Guard stood at attention attired in its vintage uniforms and three-cornered hats.

Last year, it was Brown’s turn to shine as he and his Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR qualified No. 1 and mowed through the competition in Sunday eliminations, including Schumacher in the semifinal round, on his way to a second consecutive and third career Top Fuel world title.

This year, Schumacher and Brown arrive in New Hampshire fourth and third in the Top Fuel standings, respectively, but within easy striking distance of the season’s two hottest drivers thus far – points leader and third DSR driver Leah Pritchett, and second-place Steve Torrence. Schumacher is 48 points out of the lead while Brown sits 41 points back. Torrence is 30 points behind Pritchett.

“The Sarge,” for one, is poised to stake a claim to the top spot in the standings he occupied after his semifinal run at Las Vegas on the heels of his 83rd career event title from the No. 1 qualifying position in Gainesville, Florida. Riding a streak of back-to-back No. 1 qualifying efforts at Atlanta and Topeka, Kansas, the U.S. Army Dragster is showing more speed and qualifying consistency than it has in recent years. And New England Dragway is certainly a track where he and the U.S. Army team know how to get the job done on Sundays.

Qualifying for the fifth annual NHRA New England Nationals begins Friday with FS1 providing a one-hour live qualifying show at 7:30 p.m. EDT, and a tape-delayed final qualifying wrap-up show at 2 a.m. Sunday. FS1’s delayed, three-hour broadcast of Sunday’s elimination rounds is set for 4:30 p.m.

TONY “THE SARGE” SCHUMACHER, driver of the U.S. Army Top Fuel Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing

You’ve had a weekend off to recharge and prepare for this next challenging stretch of four consecutive weekends, beginning with the NHRA’s newest and one of the Army team’s most successful tracks in New Hampshire. Your overall thoughts?

“I absolutely love it up there. We won there two years in a row and it’s always special to come back to a place like that. One thing I really like about racing up there is that it’s old school. It’s what racing is supposed to be like. Our sport has always been grassroots and it always will be grassroots. The fans really come out and support the event and they really pack ’em in all weekend long. It’s just a great place to go to. It’s the people up there who make the place so special – it’s what makes our sport so special everywhere we go. Yes, it’s very old school and grassroots in nature, but who cares what everything looks like? As long as the racetrack is safe and competitive, like it is up there, that’s all that really matters. It’s a facility that is fun to be at and it’s a facility that is very conducive to putting on a great show for the fans. I can’t wait to get back there.”

The Army team has had its share of success through the first third of the season with the Gainesville event title and No. 1 qualifying efforts at Gainesville, Atlanta and Topeka. How does that make you feel about this next stretch of events?

“The Army team is a great team. The confidence level is high. We struggled the last couple of races, to be honest with you, even though we pulled off a couple of No. 1s. We had to change some clutch discs we had some extreme success with at the beginning of the year and we’re just getting it figured out. The No. 1 we had at Topeka was an impressive one because it took guts. It took two crew chiefs who sat together and said, ‘I have an idea.’ The kind of conditions we had there have been so few and far between that we don’t have a log book full of that stuff. So it was nice to have a great run like that and have it to put in the books because, at the end of the year, we’re going to need it. Those were conditions we’ll see at Reading, Pennsylvania at the end of the year, so it’ll help us go out and try to win the championship.”

One of the most memorable victories ever for you and the Army team came at New Hampshire two years ago on the 240th birthday of the U.S. Army. What are your memories of that magical weekend?

“This is a really tough profession and it requires a tremendous effort from so many people. And we don’t always get to walk away with the trophy. I really feel like I’ve been blessed and our team has been blessed for going on 17 years to be associated with the U.S. Army. It’s the greatest team there is and built by so many incredible individuals. We talk about how they utilize science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to do their jobs at the highest efficiency and that’s what we have to do here with this racecar to perform at our best. I rely on Mike (Green, crew chief), Phil (Shuler, assistant crew chief) and all my guys to be at their best. I’ve said it for years that it’s a gift to be put in a situation like we were two years ago at Epping. And being surrounded by guys capable of the moment is what allowed us to come out on top. To win on the birthday of the U.S. Army and seeing the guys from the Continental Color Guard up there with us, all of it was special. Just a really proud day for all of us. We’re really hoping to be in that same situation this weekend.”

ANTRON BROWN, driver of the Matco Tools/U.S. Army Top Fuel Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing

Your overall thoughts as you head to New Hampshire to begin this next stretch of four consecutive race weekends?

“We’re looking forward to the start of this four race stretch with our Matco Tools/U.S. Army boys. It’s a lot of work, a big stretch of races that these guys will be gone from home, but we are a team and we we’ve all been there before, and we’ve had success through stretches like this over the years. We’re coming back as defending champs at Epping and I hope we can step up and take care of business again this weekend to kick off this stretch. It’s still one of the newer stops on the tour, but we’re definitely excited to get up there this weekend and have another go at it. We’ve been running well, lately, and we’re staring a pretty tough stretch of races. It’s been a lot of fun going up there and racing. I’m an East Coast guy, so anytime we get to race anywhere close to home, I’m all for it.”

What are your feelings about the racing at New Hampshire?

“They have a really, really great racetrack. It’s really smooth, and you’re able to go faster than the track temperature allows you to go at a lot of other racetracks. So that’s what is pretty cool about Epping. You can run hard and you can run fast up there. There are lots of trees around, we’ve got plenty of oxygen in the air, and the barometer is right. So you can make some good power up there and run hard. Last year, we were in a groove. We qualified No. 1. We ran some low ETs in each elimination round. This year, we’re going to try and step things up because the competition is just that much more intense than it’s ever been. It takes a perfect weekend to win, and that is going to be our goal, like it is every weekend. All we can do is race as hard as we can every lap because this sport is very humbling. We’ve just been on the right side of it more often than not. This is where this sport’s at right now. It’s at an all-time high and we’re enjoying the challenge. Right now, we might be the champions from last year and the year before, but we have a few cars ahead of us that we are chasing. All these cars are capable of great things and these crew chiefs are getting smarter every year. Everybody is raising the bar. This is like an NFL game right now – any given Sunday, any team has a chance to win. It’s anybody’s race. It’s about more than being consistent, it’s about being quick and consistent. That’s the new game.”