Antron Brown raced his Don Schumacher-owned Matco Tools dragster to the provisional No. 7 qualifying position Friday at Firebird International Raceway near Phoenix. The Matco Tools flagship driver made two solid runs on Friday at Firebird with a quickest elapsed time of 3.884-seconds on Friday evening.
Brown, the defending event champion of the Phoenix race, opened qualifying at the 26th annual Arizona Nationals by racing to a lap of 3.935 seconds at 305.01 mph. That was the third quickest pass of the first session earning the Matco Tools/U.S. Army team one bonus point. On his second pass, the 33-year-old former college track star used a tune-up from crew chiefs Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald to power the Matco/Valvoline rail to a pass of 3.884 at 309.91 to finish seventh in the 16-car order. Brown’s DSR teammates finished second (Tony Schumacher, 3.827) and fourth (Cory McClenathan, 3.841) on Friday.
“We made two good runs on Friday here at Phoenix,” Brown said. “We dropped a hole (cylinder) on the first pass and still made a nice run. We stepped it up for the night run and Brian (Corradi) and Mark (Oswald) and this Matco team is still working hard on the tune-up. It was important to make two good runs because they’re calling for some rain tomorrow.”
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