U.S. Army NHRA Racing: 25th Annual Kansas Nationals Final Qualifying Report - Tony Schumacher & Antron Brown

U.S. Army NHRA Racing
25th Annual NHRA Kansas Nationals Final Qualifying Report

Date: May 18, 2013
Event: 25th Annual NHRA Kansas Nationals (Round 8 of 24)
Series: NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series
Location: Heartland Park Topeka (Kan.)
Top Qualifier: Shawn Langdon (3.767 seconds at 322.50 mph)
U.S. Army Racing Lineup: Tony Schumacher 2nd (3.769 seconds at 326.08 mph)
                                             Antron Brown 6th (3.803 seconds at 316.15 mph)

The U.S. Army Top Fuel Dragster duo of Tony Schumacher and Antron Brown will start Sunday's elimination rounds of the 25th Annual NHRA Kansas Nationals in the second and sixth positions after Saturday's final Mello Yello Drag Racing Series qualifying sessions at Heartland Park Topeka.

Each member of the U.S. Army Racing team plays a vital role in the success of the car on the track, making Friday's top qualifying effort by Schumacher and the U.S. Army Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) a total team effort. Similarly, every Soldier, no matter which of the more than 150 career options he or she chooses in the Army, is vital to the success of the mission, which this weekend is to bring home the seven-time champion driver's 73rd career event title and third of the season.

Neither DSR driver improved upon his fast qualifying run from Friday, but Schumacher did see his No. 1 effort eclipsed by just two-thousandths of a second in today's opening session by Shawn Langdon's run of 3.767 seconds at 322.50 mph.

"Langdon went right after us and got a 79 (3.791 seconds in today's final session), so there was more in the track but we just didn't capture it," Schumacher said after closing the day with a run of 3.829 seconds at 320.97 mph in the final qualifying session. "There's always more. I can't tell you the last time I looked at the computer and said, 'There's nothing left.' We qualified well. The weather Sunday is going to be up in the air from what everybody's been predicting. It could be nice, or it could be disastrous. And we just won't know until we get up in the morning and look out the window. I'm praying for good weather. I'm praying for a fair race where it's not the weather conditions that determine the outcome but the crew chiefs and drivers. We don't spend all our time and energy and resources to be equal. For weather to come in and equalize the field, it's done it to us too many times. Over the course of the year, it really doesn't bite you that often. But, bottom line, you win by being the best team, not by getting lucky with weather. Only the strongest wear our colors. U.S. Army Soldiers possess a mental, emotional and physical strength like no other, and this U.S. Army team reflects those strengths. We want to be able to compete based on those merits."

Brown stopped the clocks with a run of 3.883 seconds at 312.50 mph in his opening run of the day, a run he surpassed by some eight-hundredths of a second Friday.

"That last run, we were trying to go for it," Brown said of his 5.047-second, 161.96-mph pass in today's final round of qualifying. "We actually hurt the engine on the first run of the day, so even that run was nowhere near what we were looking for. And that last run, there, we really didn't back off the car. We were trying to run a high 70 (3.7 seconds). About a 79-80 is what the track had, and we were trying for a 77. Our car was trying to make it up and go but, at about 250 feet, it just peeled them up. This morning, we actually hurt the engine on the burnout, so we had to go back and rework it, put a new block in and it was fine. We're in a good position. Tomorrow, we'll just go back to what we know. Depending on what the weather does, we'll just take it one round at a time and try to gradually do it like we did at Atlanta. We'll go out in the first round and try and run a decent number. And then we'll just make adjustments per round after seeing what we need."

Top Fuel elimination rounds are set for noon EDT Sunday. The local weather forecast calls for a 65-percent chance of scattered thunderstorms through the afternoon with possible severe weather by the late-afternoon or early evening hours. ESPN2's elimination rounds are set for an 8 p.m. EDT broadcast Sunday.

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