The Countdown to the Championship started last weekend with “The Shake-up at Charlotte,” as top-ranked Top Fuel racers tumbled from contention early in eliminations.

The NHRA Dodge Nationals, near Reading, Pa., Sunday was “The Redemption At Reading” for Antron Brown, who made the semifinals, and Steve Torrence, who reclaimed the points lead from Doug Kalitta. But for Tony Schumacher and Leah Pritchett, the visit to Maple Grove Raceway, near Reading, Pa., was “The Rerun At Reading.”

Epping, N.H., victor Brittany Force escaped the Charlotte buzz saw without angst and with a semifinal finish. And Sunday she won in the Northeast for the second time this year, defeating Torrence in the final round.

Force used a 3.756-second elapsed time at 326.24 mph on the 1,000-foot course in the Monster Energy Dragster. Torrence drove his Capco Contractors Dragster to a 3.857, 258.76 in pursuit.

Force did more than deliver for crew chief Brian Husen, tuning maestro Alan Johnson, and her team in registering her second victory in three finals this year. She eliminated Charlotte spoiler Wayne Newby, all-time class victories leader Tony Schumacher, and reigning champion Antron Brown to each her third final round at this racetrack.

Moreover, she delivered notice – as the No. 3-ranked driver who has moved halfway through the field in he first two events – that she means business.

“The Monster team, we’re going after the championship,” Force declared following her fifth overall victory. “It was not easy winning today. We did not have an easy ladder, and the Monster team killed it all day long. We turned the corner right at the right time. This is just huge.

“Now that we’re in the Countdown, anything could change. Anything can happen. And if we keep hanging in there they way we have been, we could keep moving up,” she said.

“We had consistent runs all through qualifying and today,” Force said. “Our car went down there every single run. We weren’t No. 1 [qualifier]. We were No. 4. But you don’t need to win from the No. 1 spot.”

Force joined other first-time Reading winners Ron Capps (Funny Car), Bo Butner (Pro Stock), and Eddie Krawiec (Pro Stock Motorcycle) on the podium. And Butner was the lone No. 1 qualifier among them.

As the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series churns into its third straight Countdown event in as many weeks, with the AAA Insurance Midwest Nationals near St. Louis, the Top Fuel standings once again got scrambled.

Doug Kalitta’s points lead was short-lived. Torrence will enter Gateway Motorsports Park at Madison, Ill., this coming Friday with a 22-point advantage over him. Brown, Schumacher, Millican, and Pritchett – in that order – represent the heart of the order. Terry McMillen, Scott Palmer, and Shawn Langdon round out the playoff field.

Torrence regained some of the momentum he had Labor Day at Indianapolis with the U.S. Nationals trophy, the Traxxas Shootout $100,000 winner’s check, and the No. 1 playoff seeding. But Force denied Torrence his eighth victory of the year in 10 finals.

He qualified third and advanced Sunday past Terry Haddock, Leah Pritchett, and Dom Lagana.

Force knows the other frontrunners won’t make it any easier on her in the remaining four races.

For example, Brown, who defeated Force in the showdown her last fall, said, “The one thing is we did win two rounds today and we have three rounds in the Countdown.  It's not where we wanted to be right now. We wanted to win six rounds by now. This isn't where we want to be, but we are going to go into St. Louis with our main focus in qualifying good and hit it hard. Everyone's still right there in front of us. We just have to work hard right now. It's going to be a tough one to pull out, but I like our chances the way our team competes.  We should have been in the final here and competing for a win. We'll take our bumps and bruises right now and move forward.”

Schumacher reminded, too, that “they still award the championship to the team with the most points over the course of six race weekends, not two. If you look back over history the past couple of decades more often than not, the U.S. Army team has been right there until the end of the title hunt. We are two races into this deal and you hear people talking about a couple of drivers that are going to fight it out for the championship. I’m OK that we aren’t one of those names right now. We need to win a race or two to be in that discussion. We have a really good U.S. Army car. If we can qualify inside the top three, our chances of winning increase. We’ve got a little tougher climb than most, but I’m surrounded by some incredibly smart people on the U.S. Army team led by (crew chief) Mike Green and we’ll show up in St. Louis on Friday ready to get after it.”