KENT, Wash. (July 25, 2026) – Four-time Top Fuel world champion Antron Brown earned his first Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge victory of the 2026 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season on Saturday at the Muckleshoot Casino Resort NHRA Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways.
Brown qualified for the specialty race following his semifinal finish one week ago at the DENSO NHRA Sonoma Nationals. His first opponent was the same driver who ended his Sonoma race day, Doug Kalitta.
Both Top Fuel dragsters overpowered the racing surface and lost traction shortly after leaving the starting line, but Brown recovered, pedaling his Matco Tools Eagle Experience Top Fuel dragster to a winning pass of 4.088 seconds at 279.27 mph to advance to the final round.
Brown squared off against Jasmine Salinas in the final after she defeated Leah Pruett in the opposite semifinal. The reigning world champion left first with a stellar .046-second reaction time to Salinas’ .082 and never looked back. Brown powered to a 3.730-second pass at 332.59 mph while Salinas lost traction and coasted to a 5.934 at 112.94 mph, giving Brown his first Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge triumph of the season.
“This class is just getting deep, and everybody’s coming out with their best foot forward,” Brown said. “So you have to raise the bar. You’ve got to get on that same level, that same plane, and I know our team’s been really there, really, really close, and today we got aggressive.”
“It feels good that we’re in a good spot at the right time of year that we’re going to continue to keep on learning and growing to get to where we need to be.”
Brown also praised the impact of the Mission Foods bonus program as teams prepare for the Countdown to the Championship.
“The Mission deal is going to pay dividends this year,” Brown said. “I can already tell just how close the field’s going to be when the points get reset. We love what Mission’s doing for us because it raises the bar. It pushes us to race and get ready for race day. When you’re part of the Mission Challenge, you’re getting warmed up for Sunday. Today, I tackled the tree these last two rounds, so that’s definitely getting me ready for tomorrow. If I can repeat that tomorrow, and given the way our car is running, it puts us in a good spot to be super competitive.”
Brown’s winning run also improved his qualifying effort, placing the Matco Tools Eagle Experience Top Fuel dragster seventh on the elimination ladder. He will face Tony Schumacher in the opening round of eliminations on Sunday at Pacific Raceways as Brown looks to carry his Saturday momentum into race day.
