NORWALK, Ohio – Antron Brown drove his David Powers-owned Matco Tools dragster to a quarterfinal finish at Summit Racing Equipment Nationals at Summit Motorsports Park. The 18-time NHRA winner continues to rank second in the Top Fuel standings.
Brown qualified his Lee Beard-tuned Matco Tools dragster sixth with a lap of 4.652-seconds on Saturday afternoon and defeated former Top Alcohol dragster champion Steve Torrence before falling to 17-time Top Fuel winner Brandon Bernstein in the quarterfinals.
Facing off against Torrence for the first time this season, Brown used a Lee Beard tune-up to score the wire-to-wire win in the Matco Tools/Valvoline dragster. Brown got the jump at the start and never looked back racing to a pass of 4.616 seconds at 302.14 mph. It was the second quickest pass of the round and his 20th round win of the season. Torrence’s dragster trailed with a run of 4.829-seconds.
Competing in the quarterfinals for the 11th time in 12 races, Brown used a solid reaction time at the start, but the Matco Tools/iLocate GPS dragster dropped a cylinder early in the run and slowed to a performance of 4.861 at 274.16. Bernstein drove his bright red dragster to a pass of 4.650 at 307.72 to earn the win light and trip to the semifinals. In 30 eliminations laps this season, Brown has a record of 20-10 (. 667) in the Matco-backed rail.
“It was a tough day for our Matco boys, ” Brown said. “We have the second round blues again. I’m learning to do things to make our race car more consistent, which will be important when we get to the Countdown (to the Championship). We’re going to head back to the shop, work hard and come out swinging hard for the Western Swing. ”
The next NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series event is the 29th annual Mopar Mile-High Nationals, July 11-13, at Bandimere Speedway in Morrison, Colo. near Denver. Brown is a three-time finalist at the Denver race and he earned the pole at Bandimere Speedway in 2001.
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