Army Duo Closes Western Swing 1-2
Schumacher Maintains Consistency with Another Semifinal Run at Seattle
Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher and the U.S. Army Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) continued the 
consistency that has enabled them to maintain their position high atop the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series Top Fuel standings with another semifinal run in Sunday’s elimination rounds of this weekend’s 28th annual NHRA Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways in Kent, Washington.
The eight-time and defending Top Fuel world champion and his fellow U.S. Army driver and DSR teammate Antron Brown closed the grueling, three-event Western Swing in the same position in which they began it – first and second in the standings – but having created even further distance between themselves and the rest of the competition. Being a part of the U.S. Army team is an opportunity to be a part of America’s first team which, for 240 years, has protected and served the Nation and exists to defend the Nation and uphold the American way of life.
Schumacher, driver of the U.S. Army Dragster for DSR, qualified second for his 10th top-two qualifying spot in the season’s 16 events and turned in a pair of runs that bettered existing track records in the process on Friday and Saturday. And Sunday, he kept the momentum going with a pair of stellar efforts in his first- and second-round victories over Jenna Haddock and Steve Torrence.
His run of 3.773 seconds at 323.66 seconds was second-best in today’s opening round and easily moved him past Haddock into the second round. He came back with a brilliant start that enabled him to beat Torrence on a slight holeshot in the second round. He crossed the finish line in 3.846 seconds at 299.06 mph with a reaction time of .055 of a second while Torrence delivered a run of 3.832 seconds at 310.632 seconds with a reaction time of .087 of a second.
That set up Schumacher’s semifinal run against J.R. Todd, who he beat in the second round en route to his third event title of the season at Chicago last month. A fourth event title of the season would have to wait as Schumacher smoked his tires at the start while Todd easily cruised to his first final-round berth of the season, where he prevailed against Shawn Langdon.
“Well, we closed the Western Swing having scored more points than anybody else these last three weekends, right? That’s a huge plus as we leave Seattle,” said Schumacher, a four-time Seattle event winner who was a finalist at Denver two weekends ago and a semifinalist last weekend at Sonoma. “We’ve just got to continue with the mindset that we want to win the rest of the races. We never show up looking for anything easy. We’re just trying to go out and do our job. That was a tough one to lose. We had a really good car here and you hate losing at any race to anybody. Going up there with a 120-degree track, the decisions you’ve got to make are tough. The good thing is, the decisions my guys make are usually better than the ones the other guys make, and that’s why we’re in the lead. We had a great go at each race of the Swing. Now we’ve got two races to go before the Countdown (to the Championship playoffs) and we want to maintain our lead so we can start it in first place. And, not only lead going into the Countdown, but go into it with this car, which is capable of winning on any given day, which makes it so much fun. You know, I won a championship in 1999 by winning just one race at the end. So, what it always comes down to is winning rounds. You’ve got to avoid those early exits because they cost you championships, and we’re very good at avoiding them. We might have been a little vulnerable early in the year, but we’ve gotten stronger and more consistent, now. We’re also qualifying well, and we’re matching up well on Sundays. It all works together and I think we’re definitely headed in the right direction, once again.”
Brown, the driver of the Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR who scored his fourth event title of the season in dominating fashion last weekend at Sonoma (California) Raceway, saw his day end early with an opening-round loss to Shawn Langdon in a pedalfest. Brown, the No. 8 qualifier, smoked his tires early while Langdon smoked his much farther down the track. Both were able to re-establish grip and it was Langdon who crossed the finish line first – Brown in 4.714 seconds at 225.11 mph and Langdon in 4.419 seconds at 199.64 mph.
“We went out there and wanted to run well,” said Brown, who scored his lone Seattle event title in 2009. “The track heated up and it got loose out there. A lot of teams slowed their cars down because you make so much power here with all the trees here at sea level. We went out and spun and I tried to catch it and we did, but (Shawn) Langdon was able to make a little more distance down track before their car pulled them loose, and we just couldn’t nip them at the end. We have to go to Brainerd and go to work. We’ve clinched a Countdown spot. We have to push and put pressure on our teammate Tony (Schumacher) for that No. 1 spot. We still have two races left and Indy is worth extra points. We have to put this race behind us and qualify better at Brainerd and Indy and do some work on race day. It wasn’t a bad Swing for the Matco/U.S. Army team. The highlight was obviously winning Sonoma last weekend. Denver beat us up and we were looking to do well here at Seattle after going to the final round last year. We wanted to win here. The competition is so stiff out here in the NHRA that you just can’t mess up. It’s hard to win rounds out here. We have to make better luck for ourselves and that starts with qualifying better.”
