Antron Brown loses to teammate in quarterfinals

May 22

Antron Brown, who handles the controls of the Matco Tools Top Fuel dragster, dropped a close, tire-smoking quarterfinal round race to teammate, Tony Schumacher, in the NHRA Summer Nationals here at Heartland Park Topeka.

Brown posted a 4.576-second pass at 178.21 mph, but it trailed Schumacher’s 4.298-second jaunt at 218.65 mph.

“Simply stated, his car went farther than ours before smoking the tires,” said the New Jersey native. “Tony is a good ‘pedaler’ so I knew I had to be spot on to beat him. You really have to be easy on the throttle to get these cars to settle down.  This time around he was able to do it a bit better than me.”

The Brown-Schumacher second round match in Kansas followed a final round meeting of the two at Atlanta Dragway last weekend, which Brown won.

“I’m sure Tony was thinking about getting some revenge,” offered the New Jersey native. “Listen -- Tony will be just one driver who we’ll have to deal with the rest of the year. There is a lot of talent in the Top Fuel class this season and it is going to be real dogfight from this point forward.”

Prior to his confrontation with Schumacher, Brown disposed of his former Don Schumacher Racing teammate, Cory McClenathan, in the opening round of eliminations with a 3.845-second trip at 320.81 mph.

“It was good to see Cory out here this weekend,” said Brown. “He’s a great guy and a terrific driver. Hopefully, we’ll see him at more races.”

With his early exit at Heartland Park, Brown will drop from second-place in the standings to fifth-place. He will now take Memorial Day weekend off before returning to his home state, June 2-5, for the NHRA SuperNationals at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown, N.J.

“For sure, it will be fun to go home and see a lot of family members and friends,” he said. “I’m sure my phone will be ringing from the time I get back to Indianapolis right up to the race weekend for tickets. But, that’s part of the deal.”