For Antron Brown and the Matco Tools team led by crew chiefs Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald with assistant Brad Mason, their hot streaks occurred early in the year and over the last four events. The 2013 season opened with Brown’s dragster being destroyed by a horrific crash at the Pomona finish line but the 2012 Top Fuel world champion was uninjured thanks to DSR’s innovative safety canopy that each of its three dragsters campaigned all year.
The Matco team rallied from the crash to win the race title four weeks later at Gainesville, Fla., and added its second title two months later near Atlanta. But a very rare midseason performance slump and failure to qualify in September’s opening event in the Countdown relegated the team to being ranked ninth in points.
But the Matco squad rallied and showed championship resiliency by winning the third Countdown race at St. Louis, made the final round the next week at Maple Grove and followed by winning the Las Vegas title that enabled it to finish the season ranked second in points. Brown and Spencer Massey in the Battery Extender Powered by Schumacher dragsters each won four titles while teammate Tony Schumacher and the U.S. Army team added three
For a DSR total of DSR 11 out of a possible 24 NHRA titles in their enclosed-cockpit cars.