NHRA
Seattle: Antron Brown final report
BROWN DRIVES MATCO TOOLS DRAGSTER TO WIN AT SEATTLE, IS NOW JUST ONE WIN AWAY FROM SWEEPING WESTERN SWING KENT, Wash. (July 19, 2009) - Antron Brown took another step towards becoming just the fifth Top Fuel driver in NHRA history to sweep ...
Published: Oct 2, 2009, 4:38 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
BROWN DRIVES MATCO TOOLS DRAGSTER TO WIN AT SEATTLE, IS NOW JUST ONE WIN AWAY FROM SWEEPING WESTERN SWING
KENT, Wash. (July 19, 2009) - Antron Brown took another step towards becoming just the fifth Top Fuel driver in NHRA history to sweep the grueling Western Swing by winning his fourth race of the season Sunday at Pacific Raceways near Seattle. The win is the 22nd of Brown's career and he extended his points lead to 137 following 14 of 24 races on the 2009 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series schedule.
On Saturday at Pacific Raceways, Brown qualified the bright blue Matco Tools/Lend America dragster in the No. 10 position with a qualifying-best lap of 3.952 seconds at 305.84 mph. It was the fastest speed of qualifying. On race day, Brown bested fellow Matco Tools Racing driver Clay Millican, fan-favorite Morgan Lucas, 2009 Rookie of the Year frontrunner Spencer Massey, and six-time series champion Tony Schumacher in the final round to earn his sixth career Top Fuel win. Brown has advanced to the final round at half of the races this year.
Squaring off against Millican for the fourth time this season, Brown used the starting line advantage to race his Matco Tools/Toyota rail to the wire-to-wire win. The Brian Corradi/Mark Oswald-tuned car posted a lap of 4.073 seconds at 261.52 mph to advance to the quarterfinals at Pacific Raceways. The Matco-backed car dropped two cylinders on the run causing the slower elapsed time. Millican's Lifelock Racing/Matco Tools dragster trailed with a pass of 4.104 at 268.60. Brown is now 4-0 against the six-time IHRA champion this season and has won at least one round of racing at each track on the NHRA tour.
Facing off against the Geico/Lucas Oil car in the quarterfinals for the second straight race, Brown sailed on to the semifinals when Lucas' car lost traction early. The former college track star sped the Matco Tools/SpongeTech rail to a pass of 3.987 at 282.54 to earn a trip to the semifinals for the ninth time in 14 races. Brown's elasped time was the second quickest of the round. Lucas slowed to a pass of 8.399 at 93.16 in the right lane at Pacific Raceways. Brown is now 4-0 against Lucas this season.
Matched-up against Massey in the semifinals for the second straight week, Brown was out of the gate first and drove the Matco Tools/Toyota car to its seventh final round appearance of the season. Massey's Don Prudhomme-owned dragster lost traction at the hit of the throttle as Brown cruised into his 45th career final round and 12th in Top Fuel. The Matco-backed rail carded a performance of 4.000 at 295.79 to earn lane choice in the final round against Schumacher. It was Brown's 290th elimination round win and is 3-1 against Schumacher.
Competing against Schumacher for the fourth time this season, the top two drivers in the points standings put on a great show for the fans at Pacific Raceways. Brown got a slight jump out of the starting gate and used a Corradi and Oswald tune-up of 3.985 at 301.07 to score the narrow victory over the U.S. Army rail. The Mike Green-tuned car posted a run of 3.990 at 300.00 in a photo-finish race. Brown now has a record of 34-10 this season.
"We didn't really run that bad in qualifying here this weekend; in Denver we were the quickest and fastest of qualifying, but the sun came out on race day and that's been our achilles heal," Brown said. "It was hard to stay hooked up out there this weekend. We ran 4.00 on our last qualifying pass and that was a really good run and gave us a lot of confidence going into race day.
"We just want to race to the best of our ability and take it one round at a time. That race against Clay (Millican) was close. We still spun the tires there, but after that our car was on point all day long. Brian (Corradi) and Mark (Oswald) made great calls today. That race against Tony (Schumacher) was awesome. To win by eight thousandths (of-a-second) just shows what a great drag race it really was. It felt so good to get the win light against those guys because we were the bridesmaid against them so many times last year. It really felt great to be on the winning end. We'll go to Sonoma (Calif.) and take it one round at a time just like we did here this weekend and all season long."
The next NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series event is the 22nd annual FRAM-Autolite Nationals, July 24-26, at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif. Last July at the Sonoma race, Brown earned his third career Top Fuel No. 1 qualifying award with an elapsed time of 3.805-seconds. It was his quickest pass of the 2008 NHRA season. He raced to a semifinal finish before falling to Hillary Will. Brown also is a two-time Pro Stock Motorcycle finalist at Infineon Raceway (2004, '06).
-credit: mar
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Seattle: Final top 16 finish order
Next article Sonoma: Antron Brown preview
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Tony Schumacher
Capps, Schumacher score their first wins of 2018
NHRA
NHRA
Bristol
Capps, Schumacher score their first wins of 2018
Schumacher unconcerned by new crew chief’s lack of Top Fuel experience
NHRA
NHRA
Schumacher unconcerned by new crew chief’s lack of Top Fuel experience
Hagan, Brown, Enders lead first day of NHRA Spring Training
NHRA
NHRA
Hagan, Brown, Enders lead first day of NHRA Spring Training
Latest news
KTM sees MotoGP 2027 as a fresh start: “We never had the chance to build a new bike”
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP 29 min
KTM sees MotoGP 2027 as a fresh start: “We never had the chance to build a new bike”
Hockenheim in talks with F1 despite “virtually zero” public funding
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1 1 h
Hockenheim in talks with F1 despite “virtually zero” public funding
Philipp Eng and BMW to part ways after 11 years
IMSA
IMSA IMSA 2 h
Philipp Eng and BMW to part ways after 11 years
Frankie Muniz offers new details on 2027 NASCAR plans
NASCAR Truck
NSTR NASCAR Truck
Talladega
2 h
Frankie Muniz offers new details on 2027 NASCAR plans
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe