Brandon Bernstein (near lane) and Antron Brown during qualifying. Bernstein lost in the first round to Shawn Langdon. (Tim Marshall photo)

While Schumacher enjoyed victory lane, his U.S. Army Racing teammate, Antron Brown, lost in the semifinals against Lagana.

Despite not collecting his first win of the season, Brown, who drives the Matco Tools/U.S. Army dragster, managed to move from seventh in the points to fourth.

“We have one more opportunity to get a win,” said Brown. “We’re going to go to Pomona and give it our best shot.”

"It was a $5.00 part and it cost us a chance at $500,000 (the championship)," said crew chief Phil Shuler after Cory McClenathan, No. 2 qualifier at the 10th annual NHRA Las Vegas Nationals, made a rare first-round exit in Sunday's Top Fuel eliminations.

McClenathan, racing the FRAM Top Fuel dragster for Don Schumacher Racing, struck the tires sharply while leading Mark Mariani in the opening round, slowing to a 4.312-second run at 181.52 mph, while Mariani cruised to a 3.930/307.44 victorious pass. "It broke an exhaust keeper, dropped an exhaust valve, and went bang," Shuler continued.

The only ray of hope McClenathan had in his quest for his first Top Fuel championship was the second-round exit by points leader Larry Dixon. McClenathan is now in third, 106 markers behind Dixon. Mathematically, he is still in the running. However, Cory Mac's DSR teammate Tony Schumacher moved around him in the semifinal round, then won the event. McClenathan is now 21 points back of Schumacher, with one race remaining in the season.

"You know what, parts failure is just something you can't control," said McClenathan. "We try to control every single thing we do; that's why we do so much in-house at DSR. But when it comes to keepers like that, we change them out about half-season just to make sure they're not going to fail. And we just caught one short.