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CLERMONT, Ind. -- U.S. Army Top Fuel driver, Tony "The Sarge" Schumacher, swiped the provisional pole position here Saturday during the second day of qualifying for the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals at O'Reilly Raceway Park.
Schumacher laid down a 4.475-second pass at a track record 332.59 mph during qualifying session number three and in the process rose from 11th to first in the order.
In the Ringers Gloves Pro Bike Battle, Brown took out Sampey in the opening round, but he failed to get by Chip Hines in the semifinals of the special race for top qualifiers.
After falling to the 11th starting spot on Friday, Schumacher came back with a vengeance on Saturday with two sub 4.50-second quarter-mile trips.
"We knew we could improve today," said the defending NHRA POWERade Top Fuel world champion. "Last night, we had some things happen mechanically that slowed us down. Today's performance was certainly more to our liking."
The Chicago native is bidding for his fifth Mac Tools U.S. Nationals title. He's second on the Top Fuel victory list behind Don Garlits, who collected eight Indy crowns.
"We need to win here this year for a lot of reasons," he added. "First and foremost, we have to recover the points that we lost to Doug Kalitta (the Top Fuel leader) a couple of weeks ago in Memphis."
Schumacher on Top of Charts
CLERMONT, Ind. -- U.S. Army Top Fuel driver, Tony "The Sarge" Schumacher, swiped the provisional pole position here Saturday during the second day of qualifying for the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals at O'Reilly Raceway Park.
Schumacher laid down a 4.475-second pass at a track record 332.59 mph during qualifying session number three and in the process rose from 11th to first in the order.
In the Ringers Gloves Pro Bike Battle, Brown took out Sampey in the opening round, but he failed to get by Chip Hines in the semifinals of the special race for top qualifiers.
After falling to the 11th starting spot on Friday, Schumacher came back with a vengeance on Saturday with two sub 4.50-second quarter-mile trips.
"We knew we could improve today," said the defending NHRA POWERade Top Fuel world champion. "Last night, we had some things happen mechanically that slowed us down. Today's performance was certainly more to our liking."
The Chicago native is bidding for his fifth Mac Tools U.S. Nationals title. He's second on the Top Fuel victory list behind Don Garlits, who collected eight Indy crowns.
"We need to win here this year for a lot of reasons," he added. "First and foremost, we have to recover the points that we lost to Doug Kalitta (the Top Fuel leader) a couple of weeks ago in Memphis."
