Pomona Victory Bid Falls Just Short for Sarge

Mechanical Failure Thwarts Final-Round Run Against Longtime Rival Kalitta

Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher and his U.S. Army Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) came oh-so-close to a perfect Sunday of elimination rounds at the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season-opening NHRA Winternationals at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, California.

With machine-like precision, the eight-time world champion eliminated his first three opponents of the day, scoring the low elapsed time in each of the first three rounds, and he and his U.S. Army team led for the first time this weekend by new crew chief Mike Neff had their sights set on a record 84th career victory against longtime rival Doug Kalitta in the Top Fuel final.

Schumacher jumped out to an early lead but, before he reached half-track, a catastrophic driveline malfunction ended his bid for his 12th victory over Kalitta in their 17 career final-round meetings. The Sarge was left to coast across the finish line in 4.715 seconds at 145.93 mph to Kalitta’s effort of 3.779 seconds at 324.28 mph. It was Kalitta’s 44th career Top Fuel event title and his third at Pomona.

Tony Schumacher qualified 8th, lost to Doug Kalitta in the final round.

Antron Brown qualified 6th, lost to Schumacher in the semifinal round.

Leah Pritchett qualified 4th, lost to Scott Palmer in the first round.

“That was a lot of fun – the whole day,” said Schumacher, who was looking to break a tie with “Big Daddy” Don Garlits atop the career Pomona event title leaderboard at six wins apiece. “It was a fun deal in every way except for what happened at the end. The U.S. Army car was an awesome car. We should’ve won that but we broke a part. Generally speaking, we broke the whole rear end, there. Fortunately, that stuff doesn’t happen very often because we have the best-made parts in the business. That’s just an unfortunate one because we had a good car and they weren’t going to beat us – nobody was, not today. Still, we go on to Phoenix with absolute confidence in a great racecar and a bunch of smiling U.S. Army boys. It had been a while since we’d been to a final round, but I really couldn’t care less about what the stats are because we have a great car and we feel like we can go out and win a bunch of races this year. That was a fun team to work with today – it was a fun day. They were singing, playful, they were in their zone with no doubt we were winning that race. The only way anybody beats us is if something breaks and it did. That’s the way it goes. Kalitta and I have battled for a long, long time. They’re a great race team. Congrats to them for getting it done. They did a great job and they deserved to win today.”

Schumacher reached his 148th career event final and his first since last May at Atlanta Dragway by outrunning fellow U.S. Army and DSR driver Antron Brown in today’s semifinal round. Brown and his Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR had a brief starting-line advantage but The Sarge was able to power his way past him, crossing the finish line in 3.711 seconds at 331.45 mph to Brown’s 3.737 seconds at 330.72 mph.

Schumacher’s opening to victories today came easily against tire-smoking opponents. He laid down his best run of the weekend – and effort of 3.696 seconds at 332.18 mph – in his opening-round victory over Terry McMillen, and he followed that with a run of 3.717 seconds at 331.85 mph to beat Terry Haddock in the second round.

Brown, meanwhile, had trouble some 200 feet before the finish line in his opening-round run against Mike Salinas, but illuminated the win light with his run of 4.333 seconds at 183.22 mph as Salinas smoked his tires badly at the start. Brown then disposed of Steve Torrence in the second round with a run of 3.758 seconds at 330.07 mph after Torrence red-lighted at the starting line.

“It was a great race,” Brown said of his 66th career meeting against Schumacher in today semifinal – The Sarge capturing the win for the 30th time. “I’m proud of all of our Matco Tools/U.S. Army boys. We kept our heads down and we adapted to the situation. We made it up for that semifinal round after a quick turnaround. Hats off to Tony and all of his U.S. Army guys. They waited for us and we barely got up to the start line. They threw another great lap out there with a 71 (3.711 seconds). We tried to step it up but we just couldn’t get all the necessary changes that (crew chiefs) Brad Mason and Mark Oswald wanted to do. We got enough done that we were able to put up a solid lap and lost a close one, but that’s drag racing. We’ll lick our wounds and go to the next race. With this being our first race out with our team and our new guys coming on board, we had a great performance this weekend and I couldn’t be more proud of what our guys did. Heading into the semifinals, it was a tight situation because they were trying to make up time after running long in the first round, and then we were the last pair to go in the second round. But everyone kept their cool and the car ran flawlessly. Now we’ll go to Phoenix and hit it hard.”

For Leah Pritchett, the newest member of the U.S. Army driver line in her DSR/Mopar/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR and winner of this event from the No. 1 position a year ago, the unthinkable ended her day prematurely. The highest-qualifying of the U.S. Army contingent in the No. 4 position, the parachutes deployed at the rear of Pritchett’s racecar during her burnout prior to staging for her first-round matchup against No. 11 qualifier Scott Palmer. She had no choice but to concede the round win to Palmer, who smoked his tires and crossed the finish line in 6.489 seconds at 117.35 mph.

“We were definitely struggling this morning after the problems we had in qualifying last night,” said Pritchett, who after last year’s victory from the No. 1 qualifying position here last year duplicated the feat at the very next event at Phoenix. “We thought we had it figured out last night, but it looks like there were more major issues. We started it up four times and barely made it to the starting line, to be honest. I want to give a big thanks to my guys working their tails off. They did everything they could to find the issue, but it obviously reared its ugly head again, so we have some work to do. Ultimately, I have all the confidence in the world in Todd (Okuhara, crew chief), Scott (Okuhara, assistant crew chief) and the entire DSR/Mopar/U.S. Army team.”

After the first of 24 events on the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series tour for 2018, the top-10 drivers in the Top Fuel class are:

1. Doug Kalitta (112 points)

2. Tony Schumacher (95 points, -17)

3. Clay Millican (84 points, -28)

4. Antron Brown (78 points, -34)

5. Steve  Torrence (60 points, -52)

6. Scott Palmer (47 points, -65)

7. Brittany Force (35 points, -77)

8. Leah Pritchett (32 points, -80)

Mike Salinas (32 points -80)

Steve Faria (32 points -80)

The next event on the tour is the annual NHRA Arizona Nationals at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park on the outskirts of Phoenix two weeks hence. FS1’s delayed broadcast of elimination rounds Sunday, Feb. 25, is set for 6:30 p.m. EST.