U.S. Army NHRA Racing Fifth Annual NHRA Midwest Nationals Friday Qualifying Report
Day one of NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series qualifying for this weekend’s fifth annual NHRA Midwest 
Nationals is in the books and the U.S. Army Top Fuel driver duo of Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher and Antron Brown shared a mixed bag of results at Gateway Motorsports Park in the St. Louis suburb of Madison, Illinois.
Schumacher, the eight-time Top Fuel world champion, had two strong runs to end up third in the provisional qualifying order while Brown, the two-time and reigning champion, had a solid opening run but coasted across the finish to end his second run and sits 12th on the provision timesheets.
“The Sarge” opened his day with the second-best run of the first qualifying session, stopping the clock in 3.797 seconds at 322.19 mph in his U.S. Army Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR). He was one of just three drivers to crack the 3.8-second mark in the heat of the day. He then closed with a stout run of 3.757 seconds at 320.58 mph that was third-best for the session and for the day.
“The car is perfect – right where we want it,” said Schumacher, who won this event in 2006 and 2010 and sits fifth in this year’s Countdown to the Championship standings after last weekend’s opening event at zMAX Dragway near Charlotte, North Carolina. “We’ve gone down the track 16 times since this paint job in Indy and we got to the finish line 14 of those times. Tomorrow’s going to be hot and very much like it’s going to be Sunday afternoon. Part of me wishes that we could at least once during the weekend we could run at 11 o’clock like we do to start the day on Sunday. But I understand it’s an entertainment sport and the fans have to be there and you have to do what’s right. It’s all good. The Army car is fantastic. It’s been fantastic since Indy. We had one little hiccup at the last race or else we’d be right in the middle of the fight. We’ve got a car and that’s really all that matters at this point.”
Brown and the Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR opened the day with the fifth-best run of the first qualifying session, an effort of 3.808 seconds at 314.39 mph. He smoked his tires at half-track during his second run of the day and shut the car off, coasting across the finish line in 5.467 seconds at 126.19 mph.
“We were just going for it and the track just wasn’t as good as we thought it was right there,” said Brown, who’s vying for his fifth consecutive Gateway event title this weekend. “We’re used to these different kinds of scenarios and conditions. The good thing is, you always have to take what you can out of it and what we took out of today is that we stayed in the top-12 of the field. WE have a run that counts and tomorrow’s going to be hot like it’s going to be on race day. We’ll go out and race the racetrack tomorrow and get our game faces on for Sunday. And that’s where it really all counts. Of course we’d like to be No. 1, absolute. That’s what we shoot for every run. That’s why we’re pushing so hard. So tomorrow we’ll shoot for three (qualifying bonus) points in Q3 and three more points in Q4 and take it up a notch. Knowing in the past how our car runs here and how we run in the heat, to get in the top half of the field, we’ll have to run a 78 (3.78 seconds). So we’ll have an opportunity to get up into the top half of the field and that’s what we’ll be shooting for.”
Qualifying concludes Saturday with sessions at 3:30 and 6 p.m. EDT with FS1’s one-hour qualifying wrap-up show set for at 2 a.m. Sunday. Elimination rounds are set for noon Sunday with live TV on FS1 beginning at 2 p.m.
