U.S. Army NHRA Racing 26th Annual NHRA Northwest Nationals Final Qualifying Report
Kent, WA – The U.S. Army Top Fuel Dragster duo of Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher and Antron Brown both logged a solid day of 
qualifying for this weekend’s 26th annual O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways in Kent, Wash. Having lost the opening two rounds of qualifying Friday to Mother Nature, the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series competitors were left with two rounds in mostly cloudy but dry conditions Saturday to position themselves for Sunday’s elimination rounds.
And both Schumacher and Brown landed spots in the top half of the 16-car draw with their second-round runs today, showing that only the strongest wear the colors of the U.S. Army, whose Soldiers possess a mental, emotional and physical strength like no other, and the U.S. Army Racing team reflects those strengths.
Schumacher clocked in at 3.768 seconds at 319.29 mph down the 1,000-foot dragstrip in the U.S. Army Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) to lock down the third qualifying position and a first-round meeting Sunday with T.J. Zizzo. Schumacher’s first run today was nearly as stout – 3.802 seconds at 320.58 mph. It was a welcome feeling for the seven-time champion and his team after bowing out in the first round last weekend at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway.
“We were missing it at Sonoma, we were just off, so we made some pretty big changes to get back to what we knew,” said Schumacher, a four-time event winner at the Seattle-area track and seven-time event finalist overall. “We actually found out what we needed at Sonoma. Mike (Green, crew chief) was pretty comfortable with what we did, even though we spun the tires, because we got the early numbers back to where we wanted them, and that’s the critical part. We can adjust down track. It’s getting the car to leave hard, and that’s what it’s doing, now. Good car. It just goes to show that each member of the U.S. Army Racing team plays a vital role in the success of our car on the track, just like every Soldier, no matter which of the more than 150 career options he or she chooses in the Army, is vital to the success of the mission.
There are five or six cars that just ran almost the same, identical number that we did, so it’s going to be a dogfight tomorrow. But, hey, it’s the entertainment industry, that’s what we’re here for. And, at the end of the day, we want to win the dogfight. We have a great car and we’ll have to wait and see what happens. Cool conditions, we’ll have a great race. If it gets hot, unless it gets enough rubber down on it, it’s going to be slippery. We got two runs in today in cloudy conditions and tomorrow we might be out there racing in the heat. Hey, bring it on.”
Brown, the defending Top Fuel world champion in the Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR, qualified sixth with a run of 3.799 at 315.42 mph. He’ll meet Bob Vandergriff in Sunday’s opening round.
“We were down to only two runs, so we had a game plan,” Brown said. Mark (Oswald), Brian (Corradi, crew chiefs) and all the boys, we were focused on different things, we were just changing stuff back and forth to make things right in our bell housing, our clutch department. The first run we knew was going to be a test lap, so we just wanted to see where we’re at and then make adjustments after that. It did exactly what we wanted it to do, and then the next run was a lot better. We were hoping for a lot more but we know we can fix that and make it better. All in all, it was a great two runs and we qualified sixth. We definitely wanted to be in the top-three, but we’re in a good position to go racing, so we feel good about that. That last run was a great one to work off of for tomorrow.”
Elimination rounds Sunday are set for 2 p.m. EDT with ESPN2’s delayed qualifying coverage beginning at 7 p.m. Today’s qualifying rounds will be broadcast on ESPN2 at 10 EDT tonight.
