Antron Brown raced his Don Schumacher-owned Matco Tools dragster to the No. 11 qualifying position Saturday evening at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona.
A day after racing to the provisional No. 7 qualifying position at the 50th annual Winternationals with a lap of 3.869 seconds at 313.73 mph, Brown’s bright blue Matco Tools/U.S. Army car overpowered the hot Pomona Raceway track and slowed to run of 6.566 at 96.27 on Saturday’s first qualifying attempt. On his fourth and final qualifying effort, the Matco/Valvoline rail again overpowered the track an slowed to an elapsed time of 8.936-seconds to finish 11th in the 16-car order. Brown’s DSR teammate Cory McClenathan earned the pole at 3.78-seconds in the FRAM dragster, while Tony Schumacher raced the U.S. Army dragster to the No. 3 spot at 3.80-seconds. It was McClenathan’s 33rd career pole.
“We’ve struggled a little bit this weekend here at Pomona,” Brown said. “We’re still in test mode because this is a brand new chassis we’re running this weekend and we’re adapting the to DSR tune-up in these race cars. We’re learning with each run down the race track and we’re going to do our best and try to go some rounds on Sunday.”
Brown will face off against No. 6 qualifier Steve Torrence in the opening round of eliminations at 11 a.m. (PT) on Sunday at Auto Club Raceway. Brown is 2-0 in his career against Torrence.
| 
|