U.S. Army NHRA Racing Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals Sunday Qualifying Report
Succeeding on NHRA’s biggest stage has been a regular occurrence for U.S. Army driver Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher since 
making his debut in 1996. After three days of action in the 60th annual Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis, Schumacher continues to set the standard in world’s most prestigious drag race displaying a level of engineering and teamwork reflective of the Army’s leading-edge technology and the powerful, realistic training of its Army Strong Soldiers.
“The Sarge” opened the event Friday by pacing qualifying, raced his way to a $100,000 Traxxas Nitro Shootout victory Saturday, and after making two solid passes Sunday, he secured his 75th career pole and fourth in the U.S. Nationals. The path to a record-breaking 10th U.S. Nationals victory begins Monday when he squares off against his U.S. Army and Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) teammate Antron Brown.
“It’s Indy and us facing Antron right away just tells you how tough this race is to win,” said Schumacher. “We knew we were going to have a tough car regardless if it was him or not with a bump of 3.845. As a teammate, I’m happier that he got into this race and I have to race him, than I would be if he wasn’t in the show. This is Indy. This is too big of race for us not to have all three DSR cars out there racing. It’s more fun for the fans to watch a good drag race. They are going to see a great race. At DSR, we race to win. No team rules. It’s everyone with the same goal of winning. There is nothing easy about winning this race and no matter who wins that trophy tomorrow they’ll know it was brutally hard to win and that makes it more gratifying. Everyone on this U.S. Army team is so excited about the opportunity we have in front of us tomorrow.”
Schumacher and his nine-man U.S. Army team have been machine-like in their mission to position themselves for a run to victory Monday. He made six solid passes and maintained his position at the top of qualifying through all five sessions, ultimately earning his third No. 1 qualifier of the season, all of which have come in the last five events. The seven-time Top Fuel champion is chasing his 75th national victory of his illustrious career and is also looking to surpass Bob Glidden and become the only driver in U.S. Nationals history with 10 wins.
For Brown, the drama climaxed with his final pass in qualifying session five aboard the Matco Tools/U.S. Army for DSR. The 2011 U.S. Nationals Top Fuel champion was on the outside looking in before getting down the track in 3.845 seconds at 316.75 mph. The pass got Brown into the quickest Top Fuel field in NHRA history as the final qualifier and sets up his contest with Schumacher.
“It’s not what we wanted to do this weekend, but this is the ‘Big Go’ and everyone brought their A-game out here this weekend,” said Brown, after making the cut by one-thousandth of a second. “It was certainly the wrong time for some gremlins to strike our Matco Tools team, but the boys worked real hard. We didn’t want to throw it away on that last lap. We knew you could run a high (3).70 out there and we would have liked to have pushed for a .78, but at the same we knew we didn’t want to smoke the tires where you can’t make the show. We made the show and we have the chance to go to work tomorrow. We always like going to work on race day.”
The first round matchup will be the first time the U.S. Army teammates meet in the U.S Nationals. They have met five times in 2014 (Schumacher 3-2) and a total of 46 times (Brown 25-21) in their careers. Despite being the top two qualifiers in last year’s U.S. Nationals, neither driver was able to advance past round one. In 17 previous U.S. Nationals, Schumacher has advanced past the first round 14 times and reached the final 11 times.
Top Fuel elimination rounds are scheduled to begin Monday at 11 a.m. EDT with ESPN2’s delayed broadcast set for 12 noon.
