Mixed Results for Army Duo at Topeka

Brown Scores Season’s Second Victory at Heartland Park, Schumacher Leaves Encouraged Despite Rough Day Sunday

After a breathtaking and record-setting two rounds of qualifying Saturday in cool and overcast conditions, the U.S. Army driver duo of Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher and Antron Brown enjoyed a mixed bag of results during elimination rounds Sunday for this weekend’s 29th annual Menards NHRA Heartland Nationals, highlighted by Brown’s run to his second event title of the season.

Schumacher and his U.S. Army Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) had an impressive two qualifying runs Saturday, culminating with his career-best elapsed time of 3.660 seconds at 327.90 mph that was the second-best Top Fuel run in NHRA history, the fastest ever at Heartland Park, and earned him his record 83rd career No. 1 qualifying position. It was his second career No. 1 qualifying position at the Topeka track, his first coming in 2011.

Under clear skies and warmer conditions Sunday, things didn’t go quite so well for Schumacher and the U.S. Army team, who for the first time failed to reach at least the semifinal round for only the second time in eight events this season. In today’s opening-round matchup against No. 16 qualifier Pat Dakin, Schumacher survived a wild pedalfest in beating Dakin to the finish line in 5.895 seconds at 193.85 mph. That earned a second-round meeting with No. 8 qualifier Clay Millican, who also smoked his tires at the starting line and had to pedal it to the finish. But Schumacher’s U.S. Army Dragster quickly shut down at the start due to an unspecified malfunction, and “The Sarge” was left to limp his wounded racecar across the finish line in 8.413 seconds at 64.85 mph. He was docked 15 points in the driver standings for oiling down the track and fell from second to fourth in the championship with 10 events remaining in the regular season.

“Something was wrong – that’s it – we blew it up,” said Schumacher, whose lone career Heartland Park event title came in 2010. “It would’ve been an easy round to win but it shut off, it was sideways. We were blowing up and the clutch was in the bottom of the titanium bell housing. Something broke, something just broke. But, hey, we’ve got a bad-to-the-bone U.S. Army car, so let’s get on with it. It’s a rarity for us to have something like that happen. Something malfunctioned, the motor was down, it had a hole in it, and it just grabbed the motor and tugged it down. The first round today was a rough one but we got it done in one of those right-place, right-time runs. It hurt that we lost another 15 points for oiling down the track on that last run. We lost 10 at Atlanta, so those have been costly. Hopefully we’re done with those for the rest of the season. Overall, we can feel really good that Saturday was a great day that made us feel really, really good in very cool, overcast conditions – something that hasn’t necessarily been our forte the last several years. So that definitely makes us feel good about later on in the season, when the wins will mean the most. Overall, I’m proud of what this U.S. Army team accomplished this weekend.”

Brown and the Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragsters for DSR, meanwhile, headed into Sunday eliminations with momentum of his own after two stellar runs of his own in Saturday’s cool qualifying conditions, highlighted by his opening run of the day of 3.671 seconds at a Top Fuel national-record speed of 333.16 mph. That record turned out to be short-lived as Brittany Force was clocked in 333.66 mph during her first-round victory today over Luigi Novelli. But Brown was in solid race-day form from the get-go today, disposing of No. 14 qualifier Kebin Kinsley with the quickest run of the opening round, an effort of 3.691 seconds at 332.34 mph. Brown survived a pedalfest of his own in his second-round win over Shawn Langdon, beating his former teammate across the finish line in 4.026 seconds at 275.90 mph. His best race of the day came in the semifinals against current DSR teammate Leah Pritchett, the margin of victory helped along by his reaction time of .060 of a second to Pritchett’s .111 of a second. Brown reached the finish line in 3.715 seconds at 330.15 mph to Pritchett’s 3.718 seconds at 329.34 mph.

In just his second career Heartland Park final-round appearance, Brown matched up against the hottest Top Fuel driver in Steve Torrence, winner of the last two events at Charlotte, North Carolina and Atlanta. Both drivers launched cleanly and Torrence had a slight lead until a puff of smoke emerged from his car just past half-track. Brown went on to victory in 3.709 seconds at 332.75 mph while Torrence crossed the line in 3.836 seconds at 256.70 mph.

It was Brown’s 47th career Top Fuel victory and 63rd overall, his first at Heartland Park, and his second of the season after scoring his first at Las Vegas in April.

“That was absolutely great,” said Brown, who leapfrogged Schumacher in the standings and now sits third in the Top Fuel standings. “I’ll tell you what, the competition’s been so tight that you have to run these cars on edge every lap. My hats off to our whole team, we just kept our heads down and kept our poise. We went out there and we raced our hearts out and it feels really good to get a win here at Topeka. We’ve been wanting to win this race for so long, even though we didn’t come here really thinking about not having won it. We just went out and attacked every race and gave it our all every round like we do every weekend. And this weekend it worked out for our Matco Tools/U.S. Army gang, so I’m really stoked about it. For my wife, kids, the Matco/U.S. Army team, everybody worked so hard. I tell you, NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing is the most humbling sport. It’ll kick your butt, put you in the ground, but you’ve got to keep fighting to get up. It was just an incredible race (day), and I’ve got to hand it to my team, they worked so hard. It just feels so good to get back in the winner’s circle again.”

After eight of 24 events on the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series tour for 2017, the top-10 drivers in the Top Fuel class are:

1. Leah Pritchett (721 points)

2. Steve Torrence (691 points, -30)

3. Antron Brown (680 points, -41)

4. Tony Schumacher (673 points, -48)

5. Doug Kalitta (539 points, -182)

6. Clay Millican (448 points, -273)

7. Brittany Force (405 points, -316)

8. Terry McMillen (333 points, – 388)

9. Troy Coughlin, Jr. (327 points, -394)

10. Scott Palmer (276 points, -445)

Round nine for the 2017 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series competitors is the NHRA New England Nationals at New England Dragway in Epping, New Hampshire two weeks hence. FS1’s same-day-delayed broadcast of elimination rounds Sunday, June 4, is set for 4:30 p.m. EDT.