U.S. Army NHRA Racing NHRA Southern Nationals Final Qualifying Report
The U.S. Army Top Fuel driver duo of Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher and Antron Brown wrapped up qualifying Saturday on a high 
note for Sunday’s elimination rounds of the 34th annual Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals, showing that only the strongest wear the colors of the U.S. Army, and the Army-NHRA partnership continues to provide Americans with a platform to experience the speed, power, teamwork and technology that drives that strength.
Schumacher, driver of the U.S. Army Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR), finished his day with a solid run of 3.771 seconds at 325.14 mph down the Atlanta Dragway straightaway. It was fifth-best among the 16 qualifiers for Sunday’s round seven of the 2014 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series event and was a significant improvement over the 3.806-second, 321.50-mph run he posted in the penultimate qualifying round earlier Saturday.
“It was a good run for us, that’s for certain,” said the seven-time Top Fuel world champion who matches up with 12th-fastest qualifier Khalid alBalooshi in Sunday’s opening round of eliminations. “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. It was certainly an interesting run, that last one. We were looking dead into the sun. I popped my visor down and all I saw was glare and sun. All in all, we’re under a canopy and I’m thankful every day for being in that cockpit with an awesome piece of bulletproof glass in front of me. It was pretty intense with that awful glare out there. But it was a great run for the Army car and all the fans who stuck around through the long rain delay this afternoon. I want to say a special congrats to sister Megan, who’s graduating from college down in Florida. Outstanding job. Look forward to working with her in the future.”
Brown, who was unhurt in a fiery accident in second-round qualifying Friday night that required the Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster team for DSR to go to a backup car for the remainder of the weekend, saved his best for last, as well, posting a run of 3.764 seconds at 325.14 mph to grab the third qualifying spot. It earned a first-round matchup against 14th-fastest qualifier Ike Maier.
“The thing about it is, you look back and the good Lord puts you through struggles for different reasons, and one of them is to make you stronger,” said Brown, who opened the day by running 3.833 seconds at 289.82 mph after shutting down his backup racecar 200 feet short of the finish line on its maiden run of the weekend. “We all had to fall back on that this weekend. We got out there, the car did something where we had to shut it off before the finish line, and that was after the incident on Friday. But we bounced back today, the boys just took a brand new car, put their heads down and kept working and we ended up at number three by coming out and stepping up on that last run. We’re just getting better each run. We always work hard and just try to get better each run. You don’t always hit the home run on that first at-bat. That’s what I’ve always loved about our team, that we always try to get it right for race day. We’re in a good zone. We’ll go into tomorrow and just try to do it one run at a time and see where we end up.”
Elimination rounds are set to begin at 11 a.m. EDT Sunday with ESPN2’s three hours of delayed coverage begins at 9 p.m.
