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Antron Brown Races to Second Round at Joliet
JOLIET, Ill. (June 6, 2010) - Antron Brown drove his Don Schumacher-owned Matco Tools/U.S. Army dragster to a second-round finish Sunday afternoon at Route 66 Raceway. The 24-time NHRA winner remains fifth in the NHRA Top Fuel standings following 10 of 23 races on the 2010 NHRA schedule.
A day after racing his John Wolfe (Matco Tools' top distributor) tribute car to the No. 8 qualifying position with an elapsed time of 3.872-seconds, Brown bested local favorite T.J. Zizzo before falling to No. 1 qualifier Larry Dixon in the quarterfinals. Brown now has a mark of 13-10 in 23 rounds this season.
As the first pair of cars to race down the Route 66 Raceway track on Sunday morning, Brown scored the wire-to-wire win in his special John Wolfe/Matco Tools car. Brown left first and powered his Brian Corradi/Mark Oswald-tuned car to a lap of 3.899 seconds at 313.15 mph to advance to the second round and earn his 100th career Top Fuel round win. Zizzo, who qualified ninth, lost traction in his dragster and slowed to an elapsed time of 8.067-seconds.
Squaring off against the Al-Anabi team for the third time this season, Brown posted his quickest lap of the weekend, however it wasn't enough to defeat the two-time NHRA champion who ran the quickest pass of the round. Brown powered his John Wolfe/Matco Tools car to a run of 3.839 at 315.78, but Dixon's slightly quicker lap of 3.830 at 317.94 was enough to card the narrow win. Brown is now 0-3 against the Alan Johnson-owned car this season.
"Our DSR Matco Tools car ran great today," Brown said. "We just came out on the short side of a really close drag race. Brian (Corradi) and Mark (Oswald) and this entire Matco crew did a great job. The car was flawless. We struggled in qualifying, but made a great run to get in the show yesterday afternoon and made the second quickest pass of the round. We would have beaten just about anybody else that round, but this is NHRA drag racing and that's how it goes sometimes. I hope John Wolfe and all his great Matco customers had a great time this weekend and we're going to come out swinging hard at Englishtown (N.J.) next weekend."
The next NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series event is the 41st annual NHRA SuperNationals, June 10-13, at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown, N.J. Brown posted a runner-up finish at the Englishtown race last June.
Don Schumacher Racing, headquartered in Brownsburg, Ind., consists of seven professional NHRA teams: The U.S. Army Top Fuel dragster driven by seven-time world champion Tony Schumacher; the FRAM dragster of Cory McClenathan, and the Matco Tools dragster of Antron Brown. The Funny Car teams are the NAPA AUTO PARTS Dodge driven by Ron Capps, the Valvoline/Mail Terminal Services Dodge piloted by Jack Beckman, and the DieHard/shelor.com Dodge driven by Matt Hagan. Craig Treble rides the DSR Suzuki Pro Stock Motorcycle. Since 1998, Don Schumacher Racing teams have won 142 national events in 274 final rounds, and eight world championships.
