Antron Brown Claims Second Consecutive Brainerd Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge Win
One year after doubling up at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals, Antron Brown in the Matco Tools Top Fuel dragster raced to victory in the final round of the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Top Fuel Challenge Saturday afternoon at Brainerd International Raceway. The race-within-a-race win came with three championship bonus points and a $10,000 prize, and it kept Brown in the running for another double-up victory as he chases a second consecutive Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals Wally on Sunday.
Brown rolled into Brainerd with momentum from his win at the most recent race on the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series tour, the Sonoma Nationals at Sonoma Raceway. His final-round win over Steve Torrence in the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge at Brainerd was further proof that Brown and the Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald-led AB Motorsports team are primed for a title run in the Countdown to the Championship, which begins in just two races.
“It’s always been a plan in motion to try to peak at the right time,” said Brown, who earned his first-ever Mission #Fast2Tasty Challenge win when he won at Brainerd last year. “Our car has been running exceptionally well. That’s just a tribute to our team. They’ve been working really hard at this. We’ve got a good combination. This weekend, we’ve just been dropping holes a little bit, so we didn’t qualify where we wanted to qualify by any means, but we’ve been running strong enough to get a couple round wins in the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge and make it down the track. We’ve been down the track every run. When you do that, you set yourself up for success. It gives you a chance to win.”
By reaching the semifinals at Sonoma, Brown qualified for the Brainerd Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge. The first round of the Challenge saw Brown line up against two-time world champion Brittany Force, who he defeated in the semis at Sonoma. This meeting went Brown’s way as well, as he left the starting line first and recorded a 3.814-second pass at 303.84 mph to beat a tire-smoking Force. Brown also led wire-to-wire in the final round against Torrence, pairing a .045-second reaction time with a consistent 3.842 E.T. at 314.17 mph to claim the win.
“Steve-O has one of the best race cars out here, period,” Brown said of his final-round opponent. “They’ve won four championships for a reason. They win a lot of races each and every year. He’s the only racer out here to go perfect in the Countdown. When you race a team like that, you know what they bring to the table. For us, I know where we came from, we used to be that dominant force too. We were the team to beat. Now we’re just trying to get back to that true form, and I believe we’re there.”
The Brainerd victory marked Brown’s third overall specialty race win this season, joining his $60,000 Pep Boys NHRA Top Fuel All-Star Callout at the Gatornationals and another Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge win at the Four-Wide Nationals in Las Vegas. The win also tied Brown with Justin Ashley as the Top Fuel drivers with the most Mission #2Fast2Tasty championship bonus points.
Qualified No. 11, Brown and the Matco Tools team will take on reigning world champion Doug Kalitta in the opening round of eliminations at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals on Sunday morning. The three-time world champion is chasing his seventh Brainerd win and his fourth victory of the season.
This story was originally published on August 18, 2024.
The post Antron Brown Claims Second Consecutive Brainerd Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge Win first appeared on Drag Illustrated.
