U.S. Army NHRA Racing Kansas Nationals Saturday Qualifying Report
Saturday’s final two rounds of qualifying for this weekend’s 26th annual NHRA Kansas Nationals at Heartland Park Topeka showed 
the mental, emotional and physical strength like no other displayed by U.S. Army Soldiers is inspiring and plays a huge part in the drive to be successful for the U.S. Army Top Fuel driving duo of Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher and Antron Brown.
Schumacher, the seven-time world champion who scored one of his record 73 Top Fuel event titles at Heartland Park in 2010, finished the day with his best run of the weekend in the U.S. Army Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) – 3.771 seconds at 323.19 mph, which placed him fifth on the timesheet and earned him a matchup with DSR teammate Spencer Massey in Sunday’s opening round of eliminations. After clocking the third-fastest run in Friday’s abbreviated afternoon of qualifying thanks to rain – an effort of 3.791 seconds at 322.96 mph – Schumacher opened Saturday by smoking his tires halfway down the track and coasted across the finish line in 6.805 seconds at 92.22 mph.
“First of all, on this holiday weekend where we pay our respects to the members of the military who have paid the ultimate price for our freedom, I want to say this U.S. Army Racing team is honored and takes great pride in representing the more than 1 million Soldiers who protect our freedom and our way of life,” Schumacher said. “That last run was pretty solid even though it bobbled a cylinder, put out a cylinder at the (light) and then picked it up later. If I could’ve gotten moving earlier, it would’ve been a better run. All in all, we’re not in a bad spot. We’re going down the track. We’re getting closer to our goals. We’re just not getting those early numbers and it’s been tough to catch up. So we’ve got to go out and get that 60-foot moving, get that car leaving really good. The quicker you can get moving, the quicker you can pull that clutch in. On the previous run, it did some goofy stuff on the clutch. It was soft, actually. It wasn’t aggressive. For tomorrow, we start out racing our teammate, which is always huge. But we’ve got a good car, and I like the direction we’ve been headed.”
Brown, meanwhile, rebounded from a tire-smoking qualifying run Friday and laid down a run of 3.798 seconds at 311.56 mph in today’s opening session that placed him ninth on today’s final timesheet. Brown will race No. 8 qualifier Khalid alBalooshi in Sunday’s opening round of eliminations.
“We went 79 on our first lap today when we were just trying to get back on pace.” Brown said. “On that last lap, we stepped her up and it went out there and dropped a hole early. That ended that deal, but it was running better. We were trying for a 74, a 75 (3.74 or 3.75). Tomorrow, we’ll just step it up a bit. This track here is a little tricky because you’ve got to get more power. We’ll work on that and get it ready for race day tomorrow. We don’t have lane choice, but it doesn’t make a different here. Both lanes are good. We’ll just have to go up and hit the tree hard and make a great run and we’ll take it from there.”
Sunday’s elimination rounds are set to begin at noon EDT with ESPN2’s three-hour broadcast set for 10 p.m.
