LAS VEGAS (Oct. 31, 2015) – Antron Brown isn’t ready to dust off a spot in his trophy case for the 2015 NHRA Top Fuel world championship but he must be thinking about a place for it to go.
Antron and the Matco Tools’ “Tools for the Cause” team led by crew chiefs Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald earned their sixth No. 1 qualifying position of the season and more importantly extended their points lead to 142 over Don Schumacher Racing teammate Tony Schumacher in the battle for the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series 2015 world championship.
Any driver in the Countdown to the Championship playoff to leave the Toyota NHRA Nationals with a 151-point lead on Sunday will clinch a world championship with the finale in two weeks at Pomona, Calif., remaining.
“We’ve just been pushing every run,” said Antron, the 2012 Top Fuel champion who has won a career-best seven events this year. “That’s been our game plan. We haven’t changed the formula. We’re just continuing to do the things we’ve been doing at all the races this year.
“We were very consistent all day, this whole weekend, and we just want to take that into tomorrow. And our focus tomorrow is that first round. We just want to go out there and do what we do and get past that first round. And, if we get through that first round, we’ll worry about the second round. We’ll just keep on worrying about the process that we know we’ve been having some great success with.”
The weekend began with Antron holding a 132-point lead but the Matco team extended it to 142 with a superior qualifying performance.
DSR/SEC contribute to Matco’s ‘Tools for the Cause’
Don Schumacher’s Schumacher Electric Corp. and Don Schumacher Racing organizations have pledged a combined 10 percent from each DSR Mello Yello Series event title it wins during Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October.
DSR and SEC, the world’s largest manufacturer of battery chargers, each will contribute 5 percent to the Matco Tools’ “Tools for the Cause” program to help the Susan G. Komen foundation.
Wins by DSR’s Antron Brown in Top Fuel and Jack Beckman in Funny Car two weeks ago near Reading, Pa., contributed $10,000 into the Tools for the Cause coffer.
Another $10,000 is on the line this weekend at Las Vegas.
TOP FUEL
No. 1 qualifier: Antron Brown (Don Schumacher Racing), 3.722 sec., 326.95 mph
ANTRON BROWN, Matco Tools/U.S. Army
Qualified: No. 1
First-round opponent: Jenna Haddock
QUALIFYING RESULTS
SATURDAY: 3.798 sec., 324.36 mph, (Session 3); 3.748, 324.20, (Session 4)
FRIDAY: 3.823, 319.22, (Session 1); 3.722, 326.95, (Session 2)