Antron Brown snapped a 42-race winless drought when he defeated Top Fuel champion Steve Torrence in a final round showdown, preventing his pal from going two-for-two with trophies on Sunday.
Brown began his march to the Las Vegas winner’s circle by qualifying his Matco Tools/Global Electronic Technology/Toyota Top Fuel dragster fourth. He defeated teammate Tony Schumacher in round one, Clay Millican in round two, and Billy Torrence in the semifinals to set up a final round match-up with the younger Torrence in the finals. It was Brown’s right foot that earned him the victory against Torrence, when he ripped off a machine-like .042-second reaction time to carry him to a holeshot win over his opponent. The victory marked the 67th time in Brown’s professional career that he ended his day with a Wally trophy.
“This feels so good. The last race of the year to go out with a win, Lord knows, all the glory goes to him, and at the end of the day we had so many people that stuck with us this season,” said Brown who closed out the year ranked fifth in the Top Fuel standings.
“Getting (crew chief) Brian Corradi back in our stable and teaming up again with Mark Oswald and Brad Mason and the rest of this Matco team has been incredible. There are so many people who have stuck by us. The TRD support is amazing and Global Electronic Technology coming aboard this year, and Hangsterfer’s has been so loyal to us. Our supporters give us the motivation, and we beat the resistance with persistence. We have a great staff at DSR. We never gave up or quit. We put our heads down and Brian and Mark and the guys just kept marching forward. It feels so good to end the season with a win. We know we have our work cut out for us in ’21. We’re going to keep improving and working hard. We’ve got a great place to start next season. We can run with anybody out there. We just have to get better, be more consistent and do what we do and that’s win rounds. When you win rounds, you win races and when you win races you win championships.”
ANTRON BROWN
Driver of the Matco Tools ‘Tools for the Cause’/Global Electronic Technology/Toyota Top Fuel Dragster
Qualified: No. 4 (3.762 E.T. at 322.81 MPH)
The Results:
E1: 3.720 E.T. at 326.87 MPH defeated Tony Schumacher 9.131 E.T. at 81.00 MPH
E2: 3.761 E.T. at 325.61 MPH defeated Clay Millican 3.881 E.T. at 268.65 MPH
E3: 4.041 E.T. at 232.37 MPH defeated Billy Torrence 6.742 E.T. at 87.52 MPH
E4: 3.759 E.T. at 315.34 MPH defeated Steve Torrence 3.740 E.T. at 322.19 MPH