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The drama of last-ditch qualifying for the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals presented by Lucas Oil and the Countdown to 1 playoffs ratcheted up Sunday at O'Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis as morning rain limited the Pro racers to just one qualifying session. Antron Brown and Matt Smith took over the leads in Top Fuel and Pro Stock Motorcycle while Robert Hight and Mike Edwards held position in Funny Car and Pro Stock.

The shortened qualifying allotment settled the issues in Top Fuel and Pro Stock, where the final Countdown drama ended when qualifying set the fields for the six-race Countdown to 1 playoffs. The scenarios in Funny Car and and Pro Stock Motorcycle, meanwhile, will head into Monday's final eliminations before their final fields are set.

Antron Brown

Brown was one of three drivers who surpassed Larry Dixon's event-long 3.850 qualifying lead and as the last one to do it, clinched the No. 1 spot for the seventh time this season with Mike Ashley's Brian Corradi- and Mark Oswald-tuned Matco Tools dragster. Brown rocketed to a 3.835 at 319.22; the speed is the second fastest in the 1,000-foot era, behind only his 319.75 set earlier this year in Bristol.

"Brian and Mark looked at each other after last night's run and said, 'We can go quicker,'" said Brown. "Being a part of that Matco Tools team is something special. The car is just getting faster and more consistent with this program. Our car laid over on the top end when we ran that 3.85 and didn't pick up like it usually does, so Brian was joking around and told the guys with a high-pitched voice, 'Okay, boys. You know what time it is.' He turned that wick up, and the 319 came up on the board.
 
"We got Spencer Massey in the first round tommorrow. You wouldn't think of him qualifying No. 16, so we're going to have to race him like it's the final round. Racing Spencer this year, he'll cut a light on me than I'll cut a light on him. I don't look to go up their and gave anybody an advantage. I want to leave on everybody. There are a handful of guys in the class that are great leavers, so you always have to bring your 'A' game."

Brandon Bernstein's 3.846 was the first to knock Dixon from his perch and grab the provisional No. 1, but seven-time Indy champ Tony Schumacher quickly bettered that with a 3.836 in the Mike Green-tuned U.S. Army dragster. Schumacher, looking to tie Don Garlits as the winningest Top Fuel driver in event history, will start from the No. 2 spot. Dixon, who could muster "just" a 3.857, slipped to fourth, behind Brown, Schumacher, and Bernstein.

Morgan Lucas holds down the No. 5 spot with the GEICO Powersports machine after a 3.858 while two-time Indy champ Cory McClenathan took a big fall from second to sixth after failing to improve. Doug Kalitta qualified seventh and locked up his spot in the Countdown, and veteran Pat Dakin finished a surprising eighth.

Spencer Massey ended up on the bump spot with a 3.972 in Don Prudhomme's U.S. Smokless dragster and will face Brown in round one.

The Top Fuel Countdown field was sealed when Joe Hartley failed to qualify, locking Clay Millican into the 10th spot.

Robert Hight

Hight maintained his spot atop the Funny Car field and managed to pare a few points off the leads that Cruz Pedregon and Matt Hagan have on him in the race for the final spots in the Countdown top 10. Hight, who ran 4.095 in his lone run of the day -- not as quick as his earlier 4.082 but still the quickest pass of the round – is now tied with Hagan in points and 35 points behind Pedregon.

“That was four pretty impressive qualifying runs that the Auto Club Ford Mustang put down; that’s just stout,” said Hight. “It’s hard to run one of these fuel cars, especially a Funny Car, that many times down the track in a row. Dating back last weekend when John [Force] was in the car in Reading, that’s nine runs in a row down the racetrack without dropping cylinders and all the little things that can go wrong, so that’s very, very stout. It’s better late than never I guess because we’ve struggled all season long, and we’ve never been that messed up; we’ve always been close.

“Going into tomorrow, we have a big day ahead of us. We’re basically No. 12, and we did what we needed to do in qualifying: We outqualified Cruz [Pedregon] and [Matt] Hagan. Now, we have to go two rounds further than Cruz and a round further than Hagan. Ashley has Hagan first round, so that’s good for us. Basically, when I look at the ladder, if we win the race tomorrow, we’re in the Countdown because we would have raced Cruz in the semi’s or else he was already out, and that’s the two rounds we need. If I beat him I the semi’s, that gives me one round, then if I go on and win the final, that gives us a second round, and that puts us in the Countdown. That’s huge.”

Pedregon made the second quickest pass of the session, a solid 4.098 that broke up the four-car domination of John Force Racing at the head of the pack, Pedregon's Advance Auto Parts Solara jumped from sixth to third, ahead of John Force's 4.107. Ashley Force Hood and Mike Neff, who both ran 4.093, hold down positions 2 and 3. Del Worsham slipped a spot to sixth.

Jim Dunn tuned Jerry Toliver to an outstanding 4.110 for the seventh spot – his first top-half berth of the season -- just ahead of Bob Tasca III, who had a body-busting blower explosion and ended up eighth. Tasca's boomer was tame in comparison to the body-destroying blast suffered by Bob Bode, who sent the Impala body of his Alard entry a good 50 feet into the Indy sky after a top-end blower explosion. Bode was not injured but was ultimately bumped from the field, which has Grant Downing on the 4.230 bubble.

Mike Edwards

Edwards retained his top spot in Pro Stock, his 10th in 18 races this season, and again had the quickest run of the round, 6.609, better than two-hundredths quicker than his closest competition, and his rocket-like 6.581 from Saturday will be his run of record.

“I have to pinch myself, because qualifying No. 1 at the U.S. Nationals, that’s pretty special,” said Edwards. “It’s just another great weekend for my team. I know I sound like a broken record, but we’re just making such very good runs on this racetrack. We had some difficulties there on Saturday morning, but the guys at the shop got [a new engine] together and brought it up last night, and we’ve got everything in place. It looks like everything is good.

“I want to thank my guys and tell them how much I really appreciate them. It’s the team, its not just one person. It takes everybody to do this. And I give God all the glory because it’s all up to him.”

Nothing else changed in the top half of the field with Summit teammates Jason Line (6.620), Ronnie Humphrey (6.630), and Greg Anderson (6.635) holding down positions 2, 3, and 5, with Allen Johnson's Dodge still in fourth with a 6.633. Greg Stanfield, Ron Krisher, and rookie Ryak Ondrejko continued to hold down the final spots in the top half.

Rickie Jones' 6.689 ended up on the bump in a drama-filled session that set the final field of 10 for the Countdown to 1 championship playoffs. Warren Johnson, who entered the event in 10th, just nine points in front of 11th-place Johnny Gray, came to the line with son Kurt on the bump at 6.701, with the implications clear: He'd have to bump his son if he wanted to make the playoffs. W.J. fell just a few thousandths of a second shy of that with a 6.703, but 12th-place Larry Morgan then bumped K.J. from the field. W.J.'s DNQ also locked Jones into the Countdown.

Matt Smith

Smith, who blew an engine Saturday evening, bounced back with a stunning 6.918 in the day's lone session to rocket past event-long low qualifier Hector Arana and steal the pole position, his second of the season with the Nitro Fish Suzuki. Smith, who won the U.S. Nationals in 2006, previously was low qualifier at the Gatornationals in March.

"I won this race before and this is my third low qualifier in the last four years at this track, so for some reason we seem to shine here," said Smith. "We hurt an engine in the Ringers [Gloves Pro Bike Battle] yesterday, and last night, Steve [Tartaglia, crew chief] took our engine back to Don Schumacher Racing up the road in Brownsburg and he worked until 2 a.m. to get it right, and today, it was a rocket ship. We have six engines and he could have used any one of them, but this is Indy and he wanted our best one in the bike today, so he rebuilt it. He deserves all the credit.

“That run was really fast. It pulled the front wheel when I plugged sixth gear and the Suzukis almost never do that. There was a bit of water in the air, which probably cost us a hundredth or two, so if I had made that run on Friday night, it probably would have been a 6.88 or 6.89. It’s great to be No. 1, and now I know we have a good tune-up for tomorrow.”

Arana's Lucas Oil Buell fell to second and Andrew Hines' Screamin' Eagle/Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson to third. Michael Phillips made a huge move with his Dam Sport Suzuki, jumping from eighth (7.023) to fourth (6.971) with the second-best run of the round. Shawn Gann will start a season-high fifth with the RumBum Buell after clocking a 6.979 while L.E. Tonglet's sixth-best seeding (7.014) also was a pleasant surprise.

Junior Pippin ended up on the bump spot with a 7.064 and will be Smith's first hurdle Monday.

The battle for the final spot in the Countdown rages on as Steve Johnson's sixth-place ranking and Karen Stoffer's 10th-place finish now has them tied for points. Should they both go out in the same round Monday, Johnson would advance as he holds the Countdown tiebreaker (most rounds won). Phillips and Gann are the other two drivers fighting to stay in the top 10, but that won't all play out until Monday.

Related stories:
Friday: Dixon, Hight, Edwards, Arana first-day leaders at Indy
Saturday: Force Fords rule Funny Car; all Friday leaders maintain spots