Schumacher entered eliminations as the number one qualifier for the 77th time in his career. He was machine-like in four qualifying runs including Friday night’s pass of 3.722, the quickest run of his illustrious career. That continued Sunday as he dispatched Jenna Haddock with a pass of 3.725 seconds, before knocking out DSR teammates Spencer Massey and fellow U.S. Army teammate Antron Brown.

The victory over Brown set up his 15th final round matchup with Kalitta. “The Sarge” made it 10 consecutive final victories over Kalitta with his run of 3.720 seconds at 326.56 mph.

“We’ve had so many good races with Doug over the years,” continued Schumacher, who improved to 44-30 all-time versus Kalitta. “It’s hard to beat anyone three times in a row, let alone 10. Today, it was a matter of the team behind me. They were incredible and I just didn’t want to have to get out a car that was that good and explain why I didn’t get the job done. Fortunately, I didn’t have to.”

Doug Kalitta (Tim Marshall photo)

Doug Kalitta, driver of the Mac Tools Top Fuel Dragster, started the day from the number two position and laid down two very fast passes to pick up round wins over Clay Millican and Brittany Force. After the track begin to see shade in the afternoon, Kalitta’s Mac Tools team came up against Shawn Langdon in the semifinals. The tuneup proved to be too much for the Wild Horse Pass track but Kalitta hung on to defeat Langdon, 4.303 to 4.752 seconds.

In the final round Jim Oberhofer, crew chief for the Mac Tools team, tuned the car up to Kalitta’s quickest pass of the day, a 3.758-second run, but that number was unable to help Kalitta pick up the victory.

“My whole Mac Tools team did a great job this weekend,” said Kalitta. “We are not satisfied with the final result, but have continued to learn how to better handle the Mac Tools dragster and we look forward to Gainesville in a couple of weeks.”