U.S. Army NHRA Racing 58th Annual NHRA Winternationals at Pomona Friday Qualifying Report
The U.S. Army driver trio of Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher, Antron Brown and Leah Pritchett are fifth, second and 
seventh, respectively, on the provisional ladder after the opening two rounds of qualifying Friday for this weekend’s NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season-opening 58th annual NHRA Winternationals at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, California.
Schumacher and his U.S. Army Dragster team for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) opened the day with a solid run of 3.792 seconds at 328.36 mph that was sixth-best for the session. He finished with a run of 3.732 seconds at 331.20 mph that was second-best in the session and inched him up to fifth overall.
“The first run, we missed the tuneup and we knew exactly why, and the best part of all was to come back to the pits and the crew chief says, ‘I’ve got this, I know what we did, I get it and we’ll fix it,’ and we come back and make the second-fastest run of the next session,” said Schumacher, the eight-time Top Fuel world champion who’s vying for a record sixth career Pomona event title this weekend.
“Obviously, we went through the clutch there and there was more in the track. But we’re still in this huge learning deal. Mike (Neff, the Army team’s new crew chief), he’s from Funny Car and he’s got a lot of stuff to pick up. But he’s got such a great group around him and he knows how to use it. We have the fifth-quickest run of the day right out of the chute, and it was a great run – 331 mph. In that second session, we were beaten only another guy (No. 1 overall qualifier Clay Millican) who’s had some outstanding numbers, and he’s in a DSR car – proud to have him in one of our chassis. We’ll just come out tomorrow and do it again.”
Brown and his Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR came out with a vengeance with a blistering first run of 3.717 seconds at 332.51 mph that topped the timesheets in today’s opening session. He followed that with a run of 3.750 seconds at 322.96 mph that was third-best for the session. But Brown’s opening run was bested in the second session by Millican’s 3.694 seconds at 327.74 mph for the overall top spot.
“We’re doing well, all things considered,” Brown said. “Every run, we’re just learning and growing and that’s what it’s all about. We’re in a good position right now. We always want to come out here and be in the top half of the field, for sure. And right now the main goal is that tomorrow is going to be even better, so tomorrow is going to be where we really want to get good. The last run, it still made a good run and we were still third-quick for the round, but we were trying to run a 60 (3.60 seconds). We had a little deal right now where Mark (Oswald, crew chief) and Brad (Mason, assistant crew chief) and all the boys are going to look at it and find out what happened. We slowed up even though we had stuff in the ‘goody box’ for it to go faster, but it didn’t respond. They’re going to diagnose it and find out what that issue was and make it better for tomorrow.”
Pritchett, the newest addition to the Army team in her DSR/Mopar/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR, had a solid opening run of 3.783 seconds at 328.62 mph that placed her fifth overall, but a technical glitch early in her second run left her coasting across the finish line in 5.293 seconds at 130.38 mph.
“Today, right out of the box, we ran a 78 (3.783) overall but we were a little soft – we underestimated the track,” said Pritchett, who won this event from the No. 1 qualifying position a year ago, her first of two consecutive victories from the No. 1 position to start the 2017 season. “The track was in much better condition than what we tested with. It put us at No. 5 and, in Q2, we were looking really good up until about 250 feet – we were right on track with about our 3.66 run at Phoenix in light conditions and a very similar setup. But we had something happen to us that’s never happened before – something in our command module experienced a glitch, which made extreme clutch wear and we dropped three holes right then and there. Tonight’s project is to work on finding that, a little bit of electronics. It’s a testament to the technology it takes to make these cars go fast down the track. Day one is underneath our belt and we’re looking forward to tomorrow. Even though the numbers may not show it, we feel good about what we did today.”
The final two qualifying sessions are set for 3:45 and 7 p.m. EST Saturday. Elimination rounds are set for 2 p.m. Sunday with FS1’s three hours of live television coverage beginning at 5 p.m. In addition, FS1’s new, one-hour NHRA Race Day show debuts Sunday at 1 p.m.
