Antron Brown earned the provisional No. 1 qualifying position at Heartland Park Topeka for the second straight year after the 24-time NHRA winner paced the Top Fuel field Friday at the O’Reilly Summer Nationals. Brown set both ends of the Heartland Park track records and equaled a career-best speed at 321.96 mph.
Brown, who enters the ninth race on the 2010 NHRA schedule ranked fifth in the NHRA Top Fuel standings, led the Top Fuel field in Friday’s first qualifying session. The fomer college track star powered his Matco Tools/U.S. Army rail to a lap of 3.889 seconds at 312.35 mph to edge DSR and U.S. Army Racing teammate Tony Schumacher’s 3.896 effort. The run earned the Matco Tools team three bonus points. Paired up against Schumacher, the Matco and Army dragsters were the last two race cars to make a run down the Heartland Park track on Friday evening. As the black U.S. Army car lost traction, Brown stunned the field by carding his second quickest pass of the season at 3.785 at 321.96. The speed equaled Brown’s personal-best set at Houston Raceway Park last month. Brown has two poles this season (Gainesville and Las Vegas 1) and 23 in his career. The 3.785-second pass earned the Matco Tools team another three bonus points and six total on Friday.
“The last few races were a struggle for our team, but I have all the confidence in the world in Brian (Corradi) and Mark (Oswald) and our entire DSR Matco Tools team,” Brown said. “We had some gremlins with our new in-house DSR car, but we know it’s a great car because we have seen what Tony (Schumacher) and Cory Mac (McClenathan) have done in the DSR cars. The first run is so critical to get good data and make a good run so you can run near the back of the pack on Friday night and that 3.88 in the heat of the day was awesome. I saw Brian licking his chops before that run and when I saw that 3.78 come up on the board, I couldn’t believe it. That was such a good confidence boost for our Matco Tools team, now we just need to make two good runs tomorrow and then get it done on race day.”
Professional nitro qualifying will continue on Saturday with qualifying sessions scheduled for 12:30 and 3 p.m. (CT) at Heartland Park. Top Fuel will run first followed by Funny Car. Brown has qualified fourth and first at his two tries at the Topeka event
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