Brown looks for consistency heading into weekend Houston race

April 26

Competitive and consistent are the goals for this weekend’s 24^th annual NHRA Spring Nationals here at Royal Purple Raceway outside Houston, as well as the entire 2011 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series season, for Antron Brown and the Matco Tools Top Fuel dragster team.

Holding third place in the NHRA Full Throttle Top Fuel championship standings coming into the weekend, Brown said the desire is to get the dragster operating like it did earlier this month when he won the Las Vegas race.

“We really hit it in Vegas,” said the New Jersey native who began his professional drag-racing career on Pro Stock Motorcycles. “We want to make the Matco car act like it did there at every race.

“By that I mean we want to get down the race track consistently, like 80 percent of the time – that will win rounds and win races. To do this, you have to pay attention to the details, which is exactly what Mark and Brian (Oswald and Corradi, co-crew chiefs) do!”

The tire-test session the day after the Charlotte race two weeks ago contributed to the team’s drive for perfection.

“The testing at zMAX went well,” he explained. “We were able to try things, make improvements and continue to just get better. That’s what we want to do, continuously work to improve, to get even more consistent in everything we do.”

Traveling to Houston has been rewarding for Brown who won this race in 2008, his first season in a dragster, and went to the finals last year. In addition, due to the proximity of Louisiana, his wife’s native state, he considers it his “southern home race.”

“My in laws and their friends all come over,” said the 35-year-old Don Schumacher Racing driver. “It’s cool to come out with everyone there. For me, it’s no pressure, just out there having a good time.”