U.S. Army NHRA Racing NHRA Spring Nationals at Houston Friday Qualifying Report
The U.S. Army driver trio of Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher, Antron Brown and Leah Pritchett are second, fourth and 
11th on the provisional ladder, respectively, after the opening two rounds of qualifying Friday for this weekend’s NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series 31st annual NHRA Spring Nationals at Royal Purple Raceway in the Houston suburb of Baytown, Texas.
Schumacher and his U.S. Army Dragster team for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR), who won this event in 2005 and 2009, was one of the few car-and-driver combinations to make two solid runs the recently repaved dragstrip on both his qualifying attempts today. He opened with a run of 3.777 seconds at 318.99 mph that was second-best for the first session, but the blower on the U.S. Army car’s engine erupted when he lifted at the finish line. Schumacher came back with a run of 3.711 seconds at 322.73 mph in his nighttime run in prime conditions and held onto the No. 2 spot on the provisional ladder.
“I wouldn’t want to race against me after a day like we had today and, quite frankly, the kind of season we’ve had so far,” said Schumacher, who is coming off his second final-round appearance in the season’s opening four events two weekends ago at Las Vegas. “The track is not that tight down track, yet. So, Mike (Neff, crew chief) said we need to get the car hauling the mail early, try to get it moving quick early, because you have got to have momentum when you get down to the last part of the run. It’ll get better and better as it fills in during the weekend.
We made a good run that first run today but we hurt the car driving through the finish line. So, on the second run, we were going to want to make a good run for 800 or 900 feet, drive it close, and then protect the car the rest of the way. But when we got bumped down to eighth before our second run, we decided to push it a little further down the track and it stuck. We made two good, solid runs today and that’s a testament to this U.S. Army team. We’ll see what the weather gives us tomorrow and see what we can do to get a win here Sunday.”
Brown and his Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR launched impressively on his opening run of the day but also saw his blower erupt at less than half-track, leaving him to coast across the finish line in 4.922 seconds at 132.93 mph, good for ninth on the provisional ladder. He came back with a full pull on his closing run of the night and stopped the clock in 3.740 seconds at 324.98 mph, moving him up to fourth.
“Mark (Oswald) and Brad (Mason, co-crew chiefs), they’ve just been working hard,” said Brown, who scored his first career Top Fuel victory at this event in 2008, then followed it up with his second Houston win in 2014. “The first run today, it kind of just shook everybody up, so we wanted to get a really good run on that second one because we don’t know what tomorrow holds, weather-wise and all that. And that was a good, representative run of what we were shooting for. We could’ve gone after a little bit more, but we didn’t know how much we wanted to press and try to get away with. I mean, a 4.98 wouldn’t put us in a good spot, but a 3.74 will. So tomorrow we can shoot for the fences and try to go for the No. 1 spot. We know what we’re capable of, we left the starting line well, so we know we’re in good shape and, if the track stays the way it is, I think we can press hard.”
Pritchett and her Mopar/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR, the defending event winner here this weekend, drove into tire smoke approaching the finish line and stopped the clock in 4.142 seconds at 304.60 mph, then had to shut the car off early on her second qualifying run.
The final two qualifying sessions are set for 3 and 5:30 p.m. EDT Saturday. Elimination rounds are set for noon Sunday with FS1’s live coverage set for 2 p.m. FS1 also will broadcast a quali
