Antron Brown Maintains Top Fuel Points Lead Despite Quarterfinal Exit at St. Louis
Three-time NHRA Top Fuel world champion Antron Brown entered this weekend’s Midwest Nationals at World Wide Technology Raceway with the points lead for the first time since 2017. Powered by back-to-back victories to start the six-race NHRA Countdown to the Championship, Brown ran into a slight bump in the road to a fourth world title Sunday afternoon when he lost to eight-time world champion Tony Schumacher in the quarterfinals. A faulty sensor shut off his Matco ‘Tools for the Cause’ Toyota dragster before the finish line, stopping his Countdown win streak at nine rounds. Still, Brown maintained his points lead with three races left in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season.
Brown’s AB Motorsports dragster kicked off the weekend with a new pink look, as St. Louis was the first race in Brown’s annual ‘Tools for the Cause’ campaign. The special livery raises awareness for Matco Tools’ initiative supporting the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Throughout October, 15% of the sales from ‘Tools for the Cause’ items will be donated to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Matco Tools has donated more than $2 million to breast cancer research since the first ‘Tools for the Cause’ campaign in 2012.
With rain putting a stop to Friday’s qualifying action, Brown and his Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald-led team were left with just two qualifying sessions on Saturday. The AB Motorsports team thrived under the pressure, laying down a 3.772 E.T. at 320.74 mph pass to jump to the No. 4 spot in the first session. Brown was consistent but slightly quicker in the second and final session with his 3.764-second pass at 324.90 mph. Several other drivers also improved on their earlier runs, putting Brown No. 10 on the final qualifying order.
Matched up with Jasmine Salinas in the opening round on Sunday, Brown left the starting line first and never looked back, charging to a 3.715 E.T. at 330.07 mph to get the win over a tire-smoking Salinas. That sent Brown into the quarterfinals to take on the winningest driver in Top Fuel, Tony Schumacher. The two titans of the class previously raced each other 77 times, with Brown carrying a 43 – 34 round win record over Schumacher going into the matchup. Brown charged hard off the line just a few thousandths behind Schumacher, and while it was a close race down the 1,000-foot course, Brown came up short when his engine went silent approaching the finish line. He posted a 3.759 E.T. at just 295.92 to finish behind Schumacher and his 3.746 E.T.
“We just had a sensor that was just too tight when they put a new front tire on, and it actually triggered my car and shut it off early,” said Brown, the winningest nitro-class driver at St. Louis. “It wasn’t spinning (the tires). It was actually running a really good lap and we were running good enough on the incremental splits to outrun him by over two hundredths. With that being said, we’ll go to Dallas and keep on doing what we do. We’ve got to stop the little mistakes from biting us and go out there, keep our heads down as one team, one unit, and get after it. That’s the game plan.”
Brown held on to his No. 1 ranking, but realizes he’ll need to collect all the points available to continue padding his lead. That effort will begin in the first qualifying session at the next race on tour.
“I just want to work on Dallas,” said Brown, who moved up to No. 2 on the Top Fuel all-time win list when he won the last race in Charlotte. “Our main focus is that we hopefully get four good qualifying sessions where we can definitely work on our qualifying and get those small bonus points. That’s definitely what we want to work on.”
Brown and the AB Motorsports team will continue their quest for Brown’s fourth world championship and the team’s first title when the NHRA Mission Foods tour rolls into Ennis, Texas, for the Texas NHRA FallNationals, Oct. 11-13, at the Texas Motorplex.
This story was originally published on September 30, 2024.
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