(Richard Muir photo)

Brittany Force raced to her fourth final round of this season and her career this weekend. She was attempting to become the eighth female to win a Top Fuel NHRA national event but her bid fell short against seven-time champion Tony Schumacher. Her Castrol EDGE Dragster was running strong and consistent in qualifying and during Sunday’s eliminations. Brittany has raced Schumacher four times in the past and has defeated him in one of those match-ups.

Force and Schumacher left the line almost simultaneously, then both drivers had to pedal their machines as the Goodyear slicks fought for traction and began to smoke. Brittany did a great job controlling the throttle so her Castrol EDGE Dragster would settle down, but Schumacher was able to maintain his slight lead and crossed the finish line first with 4.440 second run at 291.13 mph to Brittany’s trailing 4.652 pass at 269.13 mph.

“I was so ready to take Tony (Schumacher) down and thought we had it. It was such a bummer when my win light didn’t come on. My car went out there and shook and smoked the tires but I pedaled it and it did hook back up for a little while but he (Schumacher) was way ahead of me,” said Force. “I’m so proud of my entire team, this Castrol EDGE Dragster ran great and we had an awesome weekend. The fact we made it to the finals shows we’ve turned our luck around as we’ve been struggling quite a bit but we’re ready to head to Vegas in few weeks and do it again.”  

Spencer Massey had problems starting during qualifying where they “blowed” it up, had a fireball one run, and some gremlins all the way through the semifinal round. It was only the second semifinal appearance for the team led by crew chiefs Phil Shuler and Todd Okuhara since the May event in Topeka, Kan.  (Jim Colraine photo)

Getting to the finals, Brittany defeated rival Spencer Massey as her dragster blasted down the track at 3.733 seconds at 329.91 during the semifinals. That performance was a career best in elapsed time and speed for Brittany Force and was indicative of the power her team led by Todd Smith and Dean “Guido” Antonelli, have been able to extract from the BOSS 500 engine.

Top Fuel: 1. Tony Schumacher, 2,462; 2. Doug Kalitta, 2,328; 3. Steve Torrence, 2,319; 4. Shawn Langdon, 2,314; 5. Antron Brown, 2,292; 6.  J.R. Todd, 2,288; 7. Spencer Massey, 2,273; 8. Khalid alBalooshi, 2,240; 9. Brittany Force, 2,188; 10. Richie Crampton, 2,177.