U.S. Army NHRA Racing NHRA New England Nationals Final Qualifying Report
Epping, NH – Saturday’s final two rounds of qualifying for this weekend’s second annual Auto-Plus NHRA New England Nationals 
saw Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher and his U.S. Army Top Fuel Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) move into the upper half of the brackets for Sunday’s elimination rounds while Antron Brown and the Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR held onto the No. 1 spot he earned Friday at New England Dragway in Epping, New Hampshire.
Schumacher, the seven-time Top Fuel world champion, displayed the level of engineering and teamwork reflective of the Army’s leading-edge technology and the powerful, realistic training of its Soldiers in laying down a solid run of 3.815 seconds at 322.65 mph in today’s third-round qualifying session that lifted him from 10th to eighth in the final qualifying order. He smoked his tires shortly after leaving the start line in today’s final-round run.
“We’re exactly where we need to be,” said Schumacher, who will match up against No. 9 qualifier Steve Torrance in Sunday’s opening round. “Every time we are on the track, this U.S. Army Racing team demonstrates the same attributes the Army looks for in its Soldiers – putting the mission first, a never-quit attitude and a refusal to accept defeat. We’re going to run Torrence and he’s ahead of us in the points. We’ll move up one place at a time. We’ve got to get through this one. He just made some great runs, and so did we, and so it’s going to be a monster battle, probably first pair out of the box and, if not, last pair, depending on the weather. But it’s going to be a tough battle. They’re a good team. We’ve got to eliminate them and stay where we’re at in the points. We moved up last week from seventh to sixth. We have a chance to get 60 points and move up again. We have to close the door on anyone who’s in the points around us. We need to go fast. We need to get up near the No. 1 spot. We’ve got a long way to go because we’re a ways behind but, when they reset the points at Indy, we want to be as close as possible to that No. 1 spot.”
Brown, who stopped the clocks Friday in 3.770 seconds at 323.58 mph to earn the No. 1 spot in track-record fashion, got down the track in 3.844 seconds at 312.71 mph during his third-round qualifying run today and dropped a cylinder midway down the track during his final-round run. He’ll meet No. 16 qualifier Todd Paton in Sunday’s opening round of eliminations. The No. 1 qualifying position was the second of the season for Brown and the 36th of his career. With 496 career elimination-round wins, Brown could reach the 500-win milestone should he run the table Sunday and capture his fourth Wally trophy of the season.
“It’s been great here at New England Raceway this weekend,” Brown said. “First day of qualifying went great. Today, we came out, the first run went an 84 (3.84 seconds), just dropped a hole at the end of the track. And this last run here, the car was definitely stepping up. We were definitely getting better. The track just wouldn’t hold it. So we’ll go to race day tomorrow feeling really good, really confident. It feels really good to get our Matco Tools/U.S. Army car to that No. 1 spot. We’re looking forward to getting out there tomorrow contending for that championship here at New England Dragway.”
ESPN2 will carry the final three hours of Sunday’s elimination rounds live beginning at 1 p.m. EDT.
