Championship Drag Racing

NHRA SummitRacing.com Nationals
Las Vegas, NV
(April 6-9)

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Tony Schumacher U.S. Army dragster

Las Vegas, Friday: U.S. Army Top Fuel driver Tony "The Sarge" Schumacher swiped the provisional pole here Friday following the opening day of qualifying for the SummitRacing.com Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The Chicago native produced a 4.501-second pass at 327.35 mph in the afternoon session to take up residence at the top of the charts heading into two more qualifying runs on Saturday.

"It's nice to get down the track like we did during the daytime," said Schumacher. "Hopefully, we can hang on to the pole and then get after it on Sunday. We haven't been very good this year when we've qualified number one."

After swiping three straight poles to open the season, Schumacher could not get beyond the quarterfinals in any of those races.

"We've got to start going rounds and making up some points in the standings," he added. "We're not going to make any progress if we're just grabbing eight points here and eight points there. We're got to take a big chunk out of the deficit this weekend."

Schumacher entered the fifth race of year tied for seventh in the points, 159 markers behind leader, Melanie Troxel.

"Perhaps, this weekend will be the beginning of our turn around," he said. "I'm certainly ready for that to happen."

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