Concord, N.C. – Antron Brown has faced many tough match-ups during his NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing career and tomorrow will be no different during 4-wide eliminations at zMAX Dragway.
With a consistent Matco Tools dragster, Antron Brown has posted three out of four qualifying runs in the 3.80’s, capturing the third qualifying spot out of the 16-car field.
“I’m very pleased with how the car ran today,” said Brown. “In fact, the car ran well in qualifying all weekend long.
“We are just going to take it over to race day. It’s great to have those runs behind us where we have confidence behind us. We are just going to go out there and do what we can do.”
Brown will line up against teammate Spencer Massey, Morgan Lucas and Hillary Will during the opening round of eliminations in the unique 4-wide format.
“We’re just going to up there to race,” Brown said. “That’s what the 4-wide is about. It’s facing your teammate but we’re going up there to race. They are going up there to kick our butt and we are going to go up there and kick their butt, plain and simple.”
Despite having a very successful start to the 2012 season, Brown and the team still want more.
“We are going to stay poised and stay hungry and do the best we can do,” he said.
“Anything can happen. There’s going to be four great cars and it’s going to be a tough round matchup tomorrow for sure.”
TOP FUEL
No. 1 qualifier: Steve Torrence (3.799 sec., 322.34 mph)
Antron Brown, Matco Tools dragster
Qualifying position: position: No. 3
Sunday’s 1st round opponent: Morgan Lucas, Spencer Massey, Hillary Will
FRIDAY
Session 1: 4.224 sec., 207.98 mph
Session 2: 3.806, 325.69
SATURDAY
Session 3: 3.862, 323.35
Session 4: 3,834, 324.28
FULL THROTTLE SCHEDULE:
Sunday: Eliminations, noon.
ON ESPN2
Sunday: 7-10 p.m. (ET); 7 p.m. (PT)
WEATHER.COM FORECAST:
Sunday: High 83, partly cloudy, 20 percent chance of rain
FOUR-WIDE FOUR-MAT
The Four-Wide NHRA Nationals features the world’s most unique drag racing format at the world’s only four-lane dragstrip at the world’s most impressive drag racing stadium.
Here are some tips about understanding how racing four-wide works:
Sunday eliminations: The specially-modified eliminations ladder in Sunday’s first round will feature Race A (qualifiers 1, 8, 9, 16), Race B (qualifiers 4, 5, 12, 13), Race C (qualifiers 2, 7, 10, 15) and Race D (qualifiers 3, 6, 11, 14). Race A and Race B will be on one side of the ladder, while Race C and Race D will be on the other.
The first two cars to get to the finish line barring redlight or other disqualification advance to the next round.
In the final round, the drivers will finish first through fourth in the order they cross the finish line, barring any red-light starts.
Lane choice: First-round lane choice will go to the quickest qualifier in the group of four, second choice to the second-quickest, and third choice to the third-quickest. In subsequent rounds, first choice will go to the driver with the lowest elapsed time from the previous round, second choice to the second-lowest, and third choice to the third-lowest.