U.S. Army NHRA Racing 17th Annual Denso Spark Plugs NHRA Nationals Friday Qualifying Report

Opening day of qualifying at this weekend’s 17th annual Denso Spark Plugs NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Friday concluded with the U.S. Army duo of Antron Brown and Tony Schumacher finishing with the seventh- and eighth-best runs, respectively, in the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series Top Fuel class.

Schumacher, the eight-time world champion in the U.S. Army Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) clocked his best run in today’s opening session, an effort of 3.788 seconds at 321.12 mph. He got off to a quick start in his second run of the day but a broken throttle cable at half-track forced him to shut the Army car down early. He crossed the finish line in 4.651 seconds at 158.82 mph.

“Honestly, that run there was a really good run until our throttle cable broke halfway down the track,” said Schumacher, an eight-time Las Vegas event titlist. “It wouldn’t necessarily have been No. 1, but it would have been teetering in that area. The car’s going down the track. It’s starting to do what we’re asking it to do. That’s generally the result of showing up and testing and working out your bugs, which we did the day after Gainesville. But, all that doesn’t mean squat until you win a race. You not only have to have a good racecar, but you have to have a little luck, and the only luck we seemed to have had so far this year is bad luck. We have to get rid of all that now, instead of having it happen at the end of the year like it did last year. The best news is, my championship seasons more often than not have started out like this year has.”

Brown and the Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR closed the day with his best run of 3.777 seconds at 308.32 mph after opening with a run of 3.899 seconds at 308.71 mph in the heat of the day.

“We’re just taking it one step at a time,” said Brown, who won this event in 2011 and won the fall event here in 2013. “That run there, I guess I got a little gun shy because I felt a little something at half-track and shut it down a little early. Tomorrow, we just keep on rolling like we’re doing. We’re heading in the right direction and we just need to keep on stepping it up. I feel good about this weekend, especially after our test day Monday after Gainesville and we’re on the other side where we’re creeping up on it, making it more aggressive as we go along. We’re in the top half of the field, so tomorrow we’ll go out and we’ll keep on improving on it. That track was killer right there. But we’ll have tomorrow at about the same time, which gives us another chance to really lay one down.”

FS1’s same-day-delayed coverage of today’s qualifying is set for 11 p.m. EDT. Top Fuel qualifying concludes Saturday with sessions at 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. and FS1 coverage set for 9 p.m. Elimination rounds begin at 2 p.m. Sunday with FS1 providing three hours of live coverage beginning at 5 p.m.