U.S. Army Teammates Battle for NHRA Glory
U.S. Army’s Brown Takes Down Teammate Schumacher in Semifinals Before Capturing New England Nationals Win
U.S. Army Racing teammates Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher and Antron Brown entered the fourth annual NHRA 
Mello Yello Drag Racing Series New England Nationals at New England Dragway in Epping, New Hampshire, with one goal. To leave New England battletested and with momentum as they embark on the first of four consecutive weekends of action, a stretch that history proves is a pivotal portion of the 24-race campaign.
Despite having to wait an additional 24 hours to complete eliminations because of rain, both Army drivers and their respective nine-man teams made gains that should pay dividends over the next three weekends and aid in the ultimate mission of challenging for the 2016 world championship. Schumacher reached his first semifinal of the season before losing to Brown, who went on to win his second national event of 2016 and continued Don Schumacher Racing’s (DSR) stranglehold on NHRA’s newest event.
Schumacher entered the weekend as the reigning and two-time NHRA New England Nationals winner and was extremely consistent aboard the U.S. Army Dragster for DSR during qualifying sessions on Friday and Saturday. The eight-time Top Fuel world champion defeated Richie Crampton in the opening round despite losing traction near the 330’ mark on the track. His lap of 4.306 seconds at 252.85 mph would not give him lane choice in his sixth career matchup with Leah Pritchett. That didn’t stop Schumacher from earning his historic 750th elimination round win as he drove around Pritchett using the left lane with his run of 3.783 seconds at 324.75 mph to extend his elimination win streak at New England Dragway to 10 straight.
The victory set up the first matchup of 2016 between the two U.S. Army teammates. It was the 57th of their careers and first since the NHRA Keystone Nationals Final at Maple Grove Raceway in Reading, Pennsylvania, last October. Unfortunately for Schumacher, his chances of victory were erased early when he fouled at the starting line after his U.S. Army Dragster left .053 seconds early.
“When you are amped up knowing how important having good lights are, you’ve got to push it,” said Schumacher. “I’d rather stand here and be disappointed that we got beat by trying too hard than to get beat on a holeshot and be saying we should have pushed a little harder. Our U.S. Army car has been phenomenal this weekend. We want to win so badly. I know (crew chief) Mike (Green, (assistant crew chief) Neal (Strausbaugh) and everyone one of my crew guys are working extremely hard to put us in position to win. The bottom line is we need to a win a race. We have a car that is capable of doing it. We’ll get it all together one day. And that day is coming soon. We didn’t get it today, but we are lot closer than we were before we got here.”
Brown followed Schumacher’s blueprint from 2015 by becoming the second consecutive driver to win the event after being the No. 1 qualifier. The two-time and reigning Top Fuel world champion took advantage of having an opening-round bye and posted a solid first pass of 3.758 seconds at 316.30 aboard the Matco Tools/U.S. Army Dragster for DSR. He faced DSR’s Shawn Langdon in the second round and was able to advance to his sixth consecutive semifinal even though he hazed his tires and posted a run of 6.170 seconds at 170.69 mph. Langdon fouled at the starting line leaving .033 seconds early to enable Brown to advance. After his matchup with Schumacher, Brown faced Steve Torrence in the final and won a thriller with his lap of 3.769 seconds at 314.61 mph to capture his 56th career NHRA victory. He became the third DSR driver to win at Epping following Spencer Massey in 2013 and Schumacher the last two years.
“It feels good,” said Brown, who joined Doug Kalitta and Brittany Force as a repeat winner in 2016. “We’ve been to a couple of other finals this year that we feel like we should’ve won. This was a great race weekend. We’re still learning some different things on the car and we are growing. The car is showing us great signs of being a phenomenal racecar thanks to the work my guys led by (co-crew chiefs) Brian (Corradi) and Mark (Oswald) are putting in. We’re reaping the benefits. We had a couple of rounds today that went our way and it felt good to be able to capitalize on that in the final round.”
