Brown Wraps Up ’Swing with Another Win
Fellow U.S. Army Driver Schumacher Drops Second-Round Pedalfest to Pritchett
It wasn’t the sweep of this year’s Western Swing that is the goal of championship-caliber drivers each year, but U.S. 
Army Top Fuel driver Antron Brown’s victory Sunday at the 30th annual NHRA Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways in Kent, Washington capped off the next-best thing.
Brown, who was the last driver to pull off the feat in 2009, started this grueling three-event stretch of the annual NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series schedule with a victory at the Mile-High Nationals in the Denver suburb of Morrison, Colorado two weeks ago, and he came oh-so-close to making it two wins in a row but was clipped in the final round by Steve Torrence at last week’s NHRA Sonoma Nationals in California’s Wine Country.
Sunday’s victory, capped by his holeshot victory over surprise Top Fuel finalist Terry McMillen, propelled Brown past Torrence into first place in the championship standings with two events to go until the Countdown to the Championship playoffs begin.
Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher and the U.S. Army Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR), meanwhile, scored a solid opening-round victory over Troy Coughlin Jr., launching his bid for a record-tying fifth career Northwest Nationals event title. It also upped his record number of career round wins to 799, coming by way of his best run of the weekend – an effort of 3.741 seconds at 328.94 mph.
But Schumacher’s milestone 800th career round win will have to wait until another day as the eight-time Top Fuel world champion came up on the short end of a pedalfest against fellow DSR driver Leah Pritchett. Schumacher smoked his tires early and could never recover fully, crossing the finish line in 6.483 seconds at 130.57 mph. Pritchett smoked here tires at halftrack but was able to hold on for the victory in 5.062 seconds at 157.72 mph.
“Ten feet further and you win that kind of a race,” Schumacher said. “You smoke the tires like that so early that there’s no way to calm it down. You need a little more momentum in that situation. This was supposed to be our day and we didn’t need to smoke the tires that early. But, you know what makes you smoke the tires? They ran a 75 (3.75 seconds) in the heat Saturday in qualifying, so we have to think they’re going to do it again and you’ve got to push it a little more. We’re getting there but we’re not quite there, yet. But we’ll be alright. It’s a long year. Looking at the standings, it doesn’t look like we’re catching the first three in the standings, but we’re in fourth place and we want to stay ahead of the next bunch right behind us, which we were able to do today. They all went out in the same round. We’ll take a week off to work on a few things and look to come back strong at Brainerd.”
Brown and his Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR capitalized on the momentum of laying down a head-turning run at the end of the day Saturday that earned his second No. 1 qualifying positions of the season, running the table Sunday for his fourth event title of the season, the 49th of his career in the Top Fuel class, and his 65th overall.
He started with a run of 3.745 seconds at 326.63 mph to be a tire-smoking Ron Smith in the first round. He then got down the track in 3.786 seconds at 325.37 mph to beat Mike Salinas, a surprise opening-round winner over Shawn Langdon. Brown’s semifinal opponent was Clay Millican, who he beat with a run of 3.781 seconds at 325.22 mph to Millican’s 3.794 seconds at 318.32 mph.
That set up the final-round showdown against the red-hot McMillen. Brown got the early advantage with his .074-of-a-second reaction time to McMillen’s .094 of a second. McMillen had the better run of 3.772 seconds at 318.54 mph to Brown’s 3.776 seconds at 326.48 mph, but Brown’s reaction time was enough to get him over the finish line first.
“I can’t even believe we’ve been going rounds like we have,” said Brown, who scored his third career Northwest Nationals title. “This Western Swing beats you down. I couldn’t be more proud of all of my guys. When things get this rough and this hard, I always give God all the glory because he pulls us through every time.
“This weekend, we had our ups and downs all through qualifying and the last session. The Matco Tools/U.S. Army boys unleashed that number to put us in that No. 1 spot and it really set the tone for the entire race day today. To go out there and get past Mike Salinas in the second round after I messed up on the start and, luckily, the boys gave me a great car and basically gave us a Mulligan and we got through it. Then, in the semifinals and finals, we went back to race mode. It was just tough competition, we were neck and neck every run. The competition has definitely stepped up their game and it sets up some really interesting stuff for these last two races heading into the Countdown to see where we end up at. We just need to keep fighting like we are. The fight is only going to get rougher. Now we’ll go back home with a week off and all I can tell you is that I’ve got a lot of work cut out for me. The boys have a lot of work in the shop and I’ve got a lot of work to get myself ready for the Countdown.”
Today’s final-round appearance was Brown’s seventh in the last ninth races and his ninth in 16 events this season.
