U.S. Army NHRA Racing 32nd Annual AAA Texas NHRA Fall Nationals Final Qualifying Report
The U.S. Army driver duo of Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher and Antron Brown locked down the second and third 
positions on the ladder Saturday for Sunday’s elimination rounds of this weekend’s NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series 32nd annual AAA Texas NHRA Fall Nationals at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis.
It was the second consecutive day during which temperatures topped out in the low 90s, leaving little chance for teams to better their runs laid down during much cooler nighttime qualifying conditions Friday.
Schumacher and his U.S. Army Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) opened Saturday with a tire-smoking run of 4.293 seconds at 187.73 mph, and closed the day with another tire-smoking run of 4.646 seconds at 158.20 mph. Schumacher will face No. 15 qualifier Terry Haddock in Sunday’s opening round of eliminations, when temperatures are forecast to be almost 30 degrees cooler after a weather front passes through overnight.
“The weather change should not be the issue everyone is talking it up to be,” said Schumacher, the winningest Top Fuel driver in Texas Motorplex history with six event titles. “We’ve got all kinds of data, but you just look at the track and the grip when the time comes and adapt,” “We’ve been doing this a long, long time. Our guys all have a lot of data. We’ll go out there and try to run fast. We’ve got a good car. The conditions today – I hate to say it was a waste of a day because points were given away and we didn’t earn them today, but somebody did. You’ve just got to be able to adapt. We were trying to run a 74 (3.74) on our heat-of-the-day run and we almost made it. It was teetering on getting down there. It was a good learning run, according to Mike (Green, crew chief). Tomorrow, we’ll go out and give it everything we’ve got. If we can’t get into the points lead by the end of this thing, we want to knock out the leader and make it more difficult for him to take away a championship from DSR. Tomorrow is going to be very fast. It’s going to be 20 to 30 degrees cooler. We know how to go fast. We’ve been doing this a long time.”
Brown and his Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR opened his Saturday of qualifying with a solid run of 3.829 seconds at 317.87 mph that was fifth-best in the session. He closed with a run of 3.750 seconds at 318.02 mph, third-best for the session. The defending Fall Nationals event winner and two-time-defending Top Fuel world champion will face No. 14 qualifier Shawn Reed in Sunday’s opening round of eliminations.
“We ran right where we wanted to, even though we dropped a hole and I shut off a little early,” said Brown, who scored his first and only other Fall Nationals Top Fuel event title here in 2012. “Besides that, we ran right where we wanted to, but we lost that one (bonus) point. I could’ve legged it out and actually outrun our teammate and get two points instead of one. It is what it is. Tomorrow’s where all the big points are made, so we have to be poised and get after it. We’ve got our work cut out for us the way these other cars are running, but I feel confident the way our Matco Tools/U.S. Army/Toyota team to go out there and do what we do. We’re in the middle of a fight and we’ve got to fight hard. It’s going to be big differences out there (with Sunday’s weather) where the cars are going to run hard, run fast, run quick, and we’ve got to be ready for that change. The first round is going to be crucial for everybody to run hard and run good.”
FS1’s delayed coverage of this weekend’s qualifying sessions is set for 1 p.m. EDT Sunday. Elimination rounds are set for noon Sunday with live television coverage on FS1 beginning at 2 p.m.
