ENNIS, Texas – Antron Brown raced his David Powers-owned Matco Tools dragster to a second round finish Sunday afternoon at Texas Motorplex. Brown and the Matco Tools team still rank second in the NHRA Countdown to 1 standings.
Brown qualified the bright blue Matco Tools rail in the No.10 position with an elapsed time of 3.897-seconds to qualify for his 165th consecutive race. The two-time Top Fuel winner (Houston and Atlanta) edged rising Top Fuel star Steve Torrence in the first round before falling to perennial title contender Brandon Bernstein in round two.
Competing in his 50th round of the season and 400th of his career, Brown raced to a narrow holeshot victory over the former NHRA Top Alcohol dragster champion. Brown used a. 066 of-a-second reaction time and a pass of 3.909 seconds at 307.37 mph to trip the win light in the right lane at Texas Motorplex. Torrence’s red dragster trailed slightly at 3.904 at 307.02 as Brown won his 33rd round of the season.
In round two, the drivers used nearly identical reaction times as Brown’s Matco Tools dragster dropped a cylinder down track and slowed to a run of 4.015 at 281.42. Bernstein drove his red dragster to a lap of 3.965 at 296.24 to advance to the semifinals. Both cars put oil on the race rack track and the Matco Tools team lost 10 points to an oil down violation. Brown now has a record of 33-18 in 20 races this season.
“Things didn’t go the way we wanted them to,” Brown said. “We made some strides. Memphis is next weekend and we can go out and redeem ourselves. Memphis has always been a good track for me, so we’re looking to go out and do well with this Matco Tools car.”
The next NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series event is the 21st annual O’Reilly Mid-South Nationals, Sept. 26-28, at Memphis Motorsports Park. Brown won the Memphis NHRA race in 2004 (def. Matt Smith).
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