U.S. Army NHRA Racing Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals Friday Qualifying Report
It was solid opening day of qualifying Friday for the U.S. Army Top Fuel driver duo of Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher 
and Antron Brown, who grabbed the top two provisional positions for this weekend’s 35th annual Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway, and both drivers are proud to say their efforts exemplify how Army teamwork makes a difference for America.
Schumacher, the eight-time and defending Top Fuel world champion and current points leader after the season’s first six events, laid down an impressive lap of 3.767 seconds at 324.12 mph in a brand new U.S. Army Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) in the penultimate run of tonight’s second qualifying session to vault to the top spot. He started the day in his all-new car with a solid run of 3.839 seconds at 321.50 mph that was fourth in the opening session.
“We’ve got a couple of bad-to-the-bone racecars out there, that’s for sure,” said Schumacher, who despite a record 78 Top Fuel event titles and eight championships still has yet to win one at Atlanta. “I’m sure that I was lined up dead straight on that second run. The guys always do a great job getting me lined up. But I felt like I was aimed left. The car left and it went left and you can’t just unsettle it. You can’t just grab the wheel and yank it right because you’re putting 10,000 horsepower on one tire and it just unsettles it. So you kind of just bring it back. You know, running late at night, it’s a little misty out and it’s a little dark out. Not perfect conditions. But for Atlanta, for Commerce, Georgia, this is a track I’ve never won at and that was a great run.”
Brown and the Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR, who laid down the fastest lap of today’s opening session at 3.786 seconds at 320.28 mph, retook the top spot from Schumacher on the final pass of the second qualifying session with a run of 3.758 seconds at 319.82 mph.
“We’ve been looking for that for a long time,” said Brown, a three-time Atlanta event titlist in Top Fuel and two-time winner in Pro Stock Motorcycles. “We’ve been putting the work in and it’s finally coming to fruition. We had a test session back in Indy recently. (Co-crew chiefs) Mark (Oswald), Brian (Corradi) and all of our Matco Tools/U.S. Army boys – they’re putting those tools to work and we never gave up. We’re putting that Army STEM to use right there, man. Put some of the science, technology, engineering and mathematics to work right there. It’s paying off right now. It’s only the first day of qualifying, but the Army car, our car and our others (DSR) cars, we all made good runs there. Hopefully we can play off of it and just keep improving. This track is tricky. It was tight, it was good, but we just gave it our all it was a good run for the Matco/Army car and we’re really happy. We’ll just go back and keep working.”
Top Fuel qualifying continues Saturday with third- and fourth-round sessions set for 1:30 and 4 p.m. EDT. ESPN2’s qualifying coverage is set for a live broadcast beginning at 9 p.m. Saturday. Elimination rounds begin at 2 p.m. Sunday with ESPN2’s three hours of delayed coverage set for 9 p.m.
