Pomona: Antron Brown Thursday rain notes

THURSDAY'S OPENING QUALIFYING WASHED AWAY AT POMONA

POMONA, Calif. (Feb. 5, 2009) - Mother Nature was the story of the day Thursday afternoon at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona as the first day of qualifying for the 49th annual Kragen O'Reilly Winternationals was canceled due to persistent rain showers in the Southern California area. Antron Brown and the Mike Ashley-owned Matco Tools Top Fuel team will attempt to qualify for the 2009 NHRA season-opening event on Friday afternoon at 2:30 p.m. (PT).

"It's a bummer, but our Matco Tools dragster is still the fastest car this year," Brown joked. "We ran that great 3.78 at testing and we really want to try and duplicate that here at Pomona this weekend. The weather has been great here at Pomona all week, but this storm front rolled in and it doesn't look good. We're optimistic because we really want to race this weekend. Pomona is an awesome facility and the Winternationals is such a great event with all the new teams and paint schemes. It a great race for the fans, so we're hoping Mother Nature plays nice and let's us race."

Brown raced the Matco Tools dragster to the quickest pass of preseason testing at 3.781 seconds at 316.45 mph near Phoenix on January 25. It was the second quickest 1,000-foot pass recorded. Weather cooperating, professional nitro qualifying will resume at 2:30 p.m. (PT) on Friday afternoon with Top Fuel followed by Funny Car. Brown, an 18-time NHRA winner, will appear on the on the KTLA-TV morning show in Los Angeles on Friday morning with reporter Gayle Anderson.

Headquartered in Brownsburg, Ind., Mike Ashley Racing fields the Matco Tools Top Fuel dragster driven by Antron Brown. MAR proudly represents racing partners Matco Tools, Lend America, Toyota, DataDot USA, Ringer's Gloves, Go Fast Sports, Goodyear, FRAM, Autolite, Suzuki, Connexions Sports and Entertainment, and Forward Sports Marketing.

Mike Ashley Racing supports Autism Awareness through their support of the Hyperbaric Therapy Center. A 2007 Centers for Disease Control report found that 1 in 150 children in America today have an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and an estimated 1.5 million Americans and their families are now affected. Autism is a national health crisis, and Mike Ashley Racing is working to help educate the public about ways they can get involved. Visit the Heal Autism Now website for more information about how you can get involved at www.healautismnow.org.

-credit: mar