U.S. Army NHRA Racing 18th Annual Denso Spark Plugs NHRA Nationals Final Qualifying Report

Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher and his U.S. Army Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) held his position Saturday and nailed down his fourth consecutive top-five qualifying spot while fellow U.S. Army driver Antron Brown and the Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR also nailed down a spot in the top half of the ladder for Sunday’s elimination rounds of the 18th annual Denso Spark Plugs NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Schumacher, the winningest Top Fuel driver at Las Vegas with eight career event titles, overcame a rare hiccup in today’s third of four qualifying sessions for the weekend with a solid closing run of 3.759 seconds at 325.37 mph and held onto the No. 2 qualifying spot he earned with two stellar runs Friday. The closing run was second-best for the session and earned Schumacher his sixth and seventh bonus points of the weekend after earning five Friday. His U.S. Army Dragster encountered problems and shut down at half-track during today’s first run, leaving him to coast across the finish line in 7.397 seconds at 86.06 mph. He’ll meet No. 15 qualifier Terry Haddock in Sunday’s opening round of eliminations.

“That Q3 run was not our norm right now,” said Schumacher, who upped his record total of career event titles to 83 two weeks ago in winning the NHRA Gatornationals in Gainesville, Florida from the No. 1 qualifying position. “It was quite surprising to have to shut it off. But that last run was great. We’ve gone (3).75, .73 and .75 and have a great racecar to go into race day. That was important to go out there on the last run because that’s closer to the conditions we’ll see tomorrow. We’re a better running car when it’s hotter. (Crew chief) Mike (Green) and (assistant crew chief) Phil (Shuler) have a good handle on it. Our Army car always seems to run well here in Vegas.”

Brown and the Matco Tools/U.S. Army team, who were sixth in Friday’s provisional qualifying order, displayed consistency today with near-identical runs of 3.793 seconds at 321.88 mph and 3.792 seconds at 322.42 mph. The opening run was third-best for that session and earned one bonus point. Brown will face No. 9 qualifier Scott Palmer in Sunday’s opening round of eliminations.

“We were very consistent today,” said Brown, the two-time defending Top Fuel world champion who won this event a year ago this weekend. “We’ve got some new stuff on the car we’re trying to work out this weekend and we’ve been trying to go a little bit faster, but we seem to be running the same ET every lap. Tomorrow being hotter, that’s one thing we can feel optimistic about because we did those laps really easily today. The good part is we go into race day still in the top half of the field. We would love to be in the top-four – that’s where we’re used to being. But we’ll take the eighth spot and keep working at it, pushing forward, and seeing what we can come up with for tomorrow. It’s going to be even hotter and trickier tomorrow, so our main goal will to focus on that first round, get after it and take it one round at a time. We’ll see if we can do a little damage out here in Vegas.”

Elimination rounds are set for 3 p.m. EDT Sunday with live TV on FS1 beginning at 6 p.m.