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Antron Brown and Matco Tools Team Fall In Round Two At Las Vegas
A day after carding his 23rd career pole and 12th in Top Fuel, Brown knocked off No. 16 qualifier Rob Passey before the Matco Tools/U.S. Army car smoked the tires in round two against Brandon Bernstein during the 11th annual Summitracing.com Nationals. Competing in his 200th career NHRA race, Brown earned this 10th round win of the season as Passey did not make a pass. Brown used a tire-smoking pass of 4.325 seconds at 228.00 mph to advance to the second round. Passey staged his car, but did not make a run. It was Brown's 97th career Top Fuel round win. Racing against Bernstein for the 14th time, two of the sport's young guns used identical reaction times at .065 of-a-second, but the Matco-backed rail lost traction early as Brown coasted to a run of 8.123 at 83.17. Bernstein's blue car sped to a lap of 4.041 at 302.28 in the right lane at LVMS to advance to the semifinals. Brown is now 7-7 against Bernstein and 0-1 this season and has fallen to the second generation driver the last three races at The Strip at LVMS. "Today was a tough day for our DSR Matco Tools team," Brown said. "We had a great effort in qualifying, but struggled today. We had a malfunction on that run. We're not sure why it smoked the tires so early. That's not typical of our Matco/Army dragster. Brian (Corradi) and Mark (Oswald) and the boys will get it figured out and we'll hit it hard for St. Louis. We're going to test on Monday and come back strong in a few weeks." The next NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series event is the 14th annual AAA Insurance Midwest Nationals, April 30-May 2, at Gateway International Raceway in Madison, Ill. Brown is the defending event champion of the St. Louis NHRA race. He defeated Bernstein in the final round at Gateway International Raceway, 3.850 to 3.888.
