U.S. Army NHRA Racing NHRA Southern Nationals Friday Qualifying Report
Friday’s opening day of qualifying at the 34th annual Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway
came to an abrupt end when the Matco Tools/U.S. Army Top Fuel Dragster of Antron Brown was involved in a fiery accident immediately after clocking the second-fastest run of the day.
Brown, the 2012 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series Top Fuel World Champion, immediately emerged unhurt from his wrecked racecar after making heavy contact with the left-side concrete barrier, flipping on its side, then making heavy contact with the right-side concrete barrier. He credited his Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) team’s cockpit canopy and fire safety technology for enabling him to climb out of the wreckage uninjured.
“We don’t know (exactly what happened),” said Brown, who crossed the finish line in 3.780 seconds at 318.69 mph before the fiery eruption occurred at the rear of the racecar. “The most important thing is the good Lord kept us safe and everything worked on that car like it was supposed to. Kudos to all the boys at the shop, the way they built this car, and the canopy – it worked good. We just don’t know, we have to go back and assess it. (Engineers) Brian (Corradi) and Mark (Oswald) and all of these Matco/U.S. Army boys will go back and look.
We’ll go back, we’ll get ready and we’ll come out tomorrow and just figure out what’s happening. We’ll be alright. It was running fine until I shut it off. We just have to see what happened and we’ll get to the bottom of it. I want to thank all of the fans for supporting us. We’re alright, it’s OK.”
Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher, driver of the U.S. Army Top Fuel Dragster for DSR, was among six competitors who had yet to make a run during the second qualifying session. NHRA safety officials canceled the rest of the session as a precaution as temperatures were dropping rapidly and, by the time track cleanup would be completed, the onset of nighttime moisture on the racetrack would make it unsafe.
“It’s a great design and we’ve made that canopy better over the last two years,” said Schumacher, whose run of 3.827 seconds at 325.50 mph in Friday’s opening qualifying session put him seventh in the provisional qualifying order. “The fact that we saw Antron get right out of the car and hug his wife Billie is a testament to the incredible safety technology we have working in our favor. And the Safety Safari made the right call in ending the session then and there. The drivers have absolute trust that these guys are the best in the world. We’ll just take what we learned on that first run today and put it to good use Saturday. The weather will be conducive, once again, to some really great runs. I know we have it in us.”
The final two Top Fuel qualifying sessions are set for 1:15 and 4 p.m. EDT Saturday. ESPN2’s two-hour qualifying show begins at 6 p.m. Saturday while its three-hour coverage of Sunday’s elimination rounds begins at 9 p.m.
