U.S. Army NHRA Racing AAA Texas NHRA Fall Nationals Friday Qualifying Report
The U.S. Army driver trio of Leah Pritchett, Antron Brown and Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher are sixth, seventh and 
10th on the provisional ladder, respectively, after the opening two rounds of qualifying Friday for this weekend’s 33rd annual AAA Texas NHRA Fall Nationals at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis.
Schumacher and his U.S. Army Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing, a record six-time Texas event titlist, was hindered by a dropped cylinder during both of this runs today, the first netting a time of 4.063 seconds at 292.33 mph, the second a run of 3.873 seconds at 311.99 mph.
“We got off the line really good, but then we had a cylinder out on that second run,” said Schumacher, whose most recent Texas win came during his most recent championship season in 2014. “We had a similar deal on the first run. The second one was a much better run, but everything needs to come together for us to get ourselves in the top half of the ladder. My theory is that everyone might have gotten a little caught off guard on that – I could be way off, but – everybody went up there trying to run an upper 70 and the track took a 72 (3.72 seconds). So if the track could take a 72 and we all tried to run 78, it just chews the clutch up. Even if he (Clay Millican) did it (3.72) by accident, the track took it. We’ll have similar conditions tomorrow, so we’ll go in with what we learned today and do what we need to do to get ourselves a good qualifying spot.”
Brown and his Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR, who won this event twice in the Top Fuel class and once in the Pro Stock Motorcycle class, smoked his tires on his opening run of the day and crossed the finish line in 6.082 seconds at 112.58 mph. He closed the day with a significantly better 3.817 seconds at 321.27 mph that left him and the team with a better foundation on which to try and improve Saturday.
“We didn’t get what we wanted. We were shooting for a nice, safe 78 or 79,” Brown said. “We got in the show and we got in the top-seven, so tomorrow, it gives us hope we can go for that No. 1 spot. We saw that there was a 72 out there. We everything on it, but our crew chiefs, Brad and Mark, came back and said the engine was a little weak. We ran the 81 with a weak engine and we’ll fix that tomorrow. We were hoping our first run would have been like that and then we could have gone for it that second run. But it’s all good. We’ll get after it tomorrow.”
Pritchett and her Mopar/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR was best of the Army Racing trio with her second run of 3.808 seconds at 324.51 after opening the day with a late tire-smoking run of 4.004 seconds at 274.50 mph.
“We were coming into this race excited about the new front half of our racecar, which was necessary to half,” said Pritchett, who’s making her fourth career Top Fuel appearance at Texas this weekend. “We went after it really strong in Q1 but unfortunately we were slipping the tire too much on the top end. So we went to the line for Q2 and I’m super proud of our Mopar/U.S. Army team for making cooperative adjustments that our car needed. We needed to get down the track. Q2 really sets the tone for the weekend and we needed that long, strong, quick pass to be able to work off of tomorrow. Overall, we’ll take it. The most important thing this weekend is continuing to focus on ourselves. There’s still a lot of R&D going into our program that we’re putting out onto the track and this is the time for it to shine and for this team to shine. We’ve got our heads held high and I know for sure that things are getting a lot better. I’m feeling very confident with the progress we are making. Don’t count this team out because we plan to keep charging hard.”
The final two qualifying sessions are set for 3 and 6 p.m. EDT Saturday. Today’s qualifying will be part of an hour-long highlight show at 1:30 a.m. Saturday on FS1, which also will show Saturday qualifying live in a 90-minute show beginning at 5:30 p.m.
