U.S. Army NHRA Racing 15th Annual NHRA Toyota Nationals Friday Qualifying Report
Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher opened the first day of qualifying Friday for this weekend’s 15th annual NHRA Toyota 
Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with a solid run that merited an all-important bonus point in the Top Fuel standings. But the day ended with a record-breaking run by points leader Antron Brown that vaulted Schumacher’s fellow U.S. Army driver to the provisional top qualifier position.
Schumacher, the winningest Top Fuel driver at The Strip with eight career event titles, laid down a solid run of 3.806 seconds at 321.04 mph in the U.S. Army Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) that was third-best in today’s opening qualifying session and temporarily closed the points deficit to Brown to 131. Schumacher and the U.S. Army team closed the day with an effort of 3.794 seconds at 323.81 mph that ended up seventh in the overall Top Fuel order as four other competitors, including Brown, laid down faster runs in the second session.
“Like I say a lot, the Friday-night run qualifies you, and it’s important to have lane choice for that first round on Sunday, which we do at this point, once again,” said Schumacher, who last won here in April 2014 en route to his record eighth career Top Fuel world title. “But we race when it’s sunny out, and we’ve got a good car and we’ve won this race a lot. I don’t know what our odds are here this year in Vegas, but probably pretty good based on our history. We tend to find a way to win at this track, especially at the end of the year. We’ll just have to take a look at what we did today. We made the changes to the car we needed to make since our last race. It’s just taking a couple of runs to get it right. Once we’ve got it right, we ought to be in really good shape.”
Brown and the Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR opened the day with the fifth-best run of the first qualifying session, an effort of 3.823 seconds at 319.22 mph. But he came back with a vengeance under the lights in much cooler conditions that produced a head-turning run of 3.722 seconds at 326.95 mph. It eclipsed J.R. Todd’s previous elapsed-time record of 3.732 seconds set here a year ago. The three bonus points for being fastest in the second session opened Brown’s lead atop the standings back to 134 points.
“We’re controlling our destiny by the way our Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster is running,” said Brown, the 2012 Top Fuel world champion who is poised to earn his sixth No. 1 qualifier position through the season’s first 23 events, which has included a career-best seven event titles thus far. “We didn’t come in here like we have a big points lead. We’re attacking it with everything we have, like it’s the first race in the Countdown (to the Championship). We’ll let the chips fall where they fall. We know clinching our second world championship won’t be easy. We’re just trying do everything possible and give it everything we have every run. We just want to keep riding that wave and take it as far as it will go. We know this is the next-to-last race and what’s on the line.”
Top Fuel qualifying concludes Saturday with sessions at 4 and 7:30 p.m. EDT. ESPN2’s qualifying show is set for delayed broadcast twice – at 3 a.m. and 3 p.m. Sunday. Elimination rounds begin at 2 p.m. Sunday with ESPN2 providing three hours of delayed coverage beginning at 8 p.m.
