U.S. Army’s Schumacher Does the Texas Two-Step in Ennis
Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher made it two-for-two Sunday at Texas Motorplex in Ennis, scoring his 76th career NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing 
Series event title by winning the 29th annual AAA Texas NHRA Fall Nationals. He won his 75th career event title Saturday at Texas Motorplex in the completion of last weekend’s Carolina NHRA Nationals. The driver of the U.S. Army Top Fuel Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) defeated J.R. Todd in the final round Sunday to open a 106-point lead atop the 2014 NHRA Mello Yellow Countdown to the Championship standings he leapfrogged to just 24 hours earlier.
Schumacher’s march to back-to-back event titles is an unprecedented situation in which final eliminations were held less than 24 hours apart. It was a prime example of how the mental, emotional and physical strength like no other displayed by our Soldiers is inspiring and plays a huge part in the U.S. Army Racing team’s drive to be successful.
Schumacher opened Sunday’s elimination rounds by beating Leah Pritchett with a pass of at 3.817 seconds at 320.97 mph. In the second round, he raced past Bob Vandergriff with a lap of 3.854 seconds at 320.05 mph. In the semifinal, Schumacher triumphed over Troy Buff, which advanced him to his fourth Top Fuel final of the season, where he surged to his fourth victory of the season with a lap of 3.891 seconds at 318.62 mph over J.R. Todd. The victory was earned at the same racetrack where “The Sarge” earned his first career Top Fuel victory in 1999.
“This ranks right at the top – right at the top,” Schumacher said. “I’ll tell you what, I don’t know that it has ever been done before. I don’t know that anyone has ever had the opportunity. We’ll see a rainout and we’ll run a final round somewhere else, but I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like this where you’ve actually had to dig that deep, that many times in a row. We are in the lead and we have to stay ahead now. We are going right to St. Louis and then right to Reading. It’s brutal. There’s no time for a break, no time for rest, but with that being said, with the fantastic momentum that we have going right now, I don’t want a break. I want to dominate. I want to leave Reading with a couple-hundred-point lead and go to Vegas and close the deal. That’s how we roll. We have a team absolutely capable of doing that right now.
“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. We did that this weekend. We won seven straight rounds this weekend, and I think it says a lot about where we are right now.”
Schumacher’s U.S. Army and DSR teammate Antron Brown posted a run of 3.876 seconds at 308.50 mph in the first round. The 2012 Top Fuel champion’s machine experienced a part failure late in the run, and while he was able to complete the pass, it wasn’t enough to turn on the win light over Shawn Langdon.
“Well, it wasn’t what we wanted first round,” Brown said. “We had a good handle on it and we ended up smoking a (clutch) disc out of the carb and it dropped a hole. We worked real hard, the car had a great 60 feet, and it was still within a hundredth at 330 feet, and we thought we had his (Langdon’s) number. The thing about it is, it just wasn’t our time. We’re going to go back, we’re going to work hard and we won’t quit the fight. We’re going to go into St. Louis, where we’ll get Army Strong next week and we are going to give it all we’ve got and try to turn it around. We have four races left. We are just going to go out to these last four races with our guns blazing, that’s the game plan.
“It was definitely on pace to run an 80-flat or a .79. It just kicks you down. We knew we had a setup to go out there and run good and be real competitive with them and it just takes a little bit of wind out of you. We’ve been fighting other problems and we got those problems fixed and then something else comes up and bites you. With that said, we just have to stay focused and put our attention on St. Louis. We’ve got nothing to lose, we’re going to go out there and give it everything we’ve got.”
