Two weeks after winning the season-opening NHRA Gatornationals, four-time and reigning NHRA Top Fuel world champion Antron Brown faced vastly different conditions at the NHRA Arizona Nationals at Firebird Motorsports Park. Brown in his Matco Tools dragster made the second-quickest pass of Sunday’s first round of eliminations, but a dropped cylinder in the second round ended Brown’s day. The hot conditions gave crew chief Brian Corradi and the AB Motorsports team valuable data along with confidence in their ability to adapt to a wide range of variables.
Brown qualified in the middle of the pack in the first qualifying session, taking the provisional No. 6 spot with his 3.889 E.T. at 292.33 mph. He laid down a 3.710-second pass at 331.69 mph in the second session to jump up two spots to fourth. The third qualifying session counted as the first round of the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Top Fuel Challenge, which Brown qualified for when he made it to the semifinals in Gainesville. Facing Tony Stewart, who was in as an alternate, Brown launched ahead of Stewart but lost traction and dropped cylinders. He then focused on the final qualifying session, where he set low E.T. of the session, a 3.800 E.T. at 326.71 mph. Brown picked up three bonus points for that performance.
Qualified fourth, Brown paired up with fellow independent driver and team owner Josh Hart in the first round of eliminations. Brown launched hard and drove past Hart, lighting up the scoreboard with a 3.770 E.T. at 329.34 mph, the second-quickest pass of the round. He was first off the line in the second round against Jasmine Salinas, but lost momentum when he dropped a cylinder down-track. Brown crossed the finish line second with a 3.870-second pass at 314.24 mph.
“On race day, we navigated first round, we ran second-quickest of the session, and second round, we dropped a hole, but we gave it up twice by doing that and me being late on the tree, having an .085 light,” Brown said. “If I had just had an .065 on the tree, that would have been a win there too, so we lost on both sides of it.”
Always optimistic, Brown pointed out the high points of the weekend and the successes that may not have led to immediate round wins but could lead to better performances later in the season.
“When you look at the weekend overall, it gave us our first taste of hot weather, so I definitely liked what I saw with our team this weekend,” Brown said. “Our Matco team did a good job navigating through it. This track is the hottest track we’ve had at the beginning of the season like this in a very long time. You’re talking over 130+ degree track temp, so with that, you can look at all the positives that we had. We went some rounds, we would have liked to make it to the semis, and we got some good data to work off of, and a good starting point. Running low of Q4, that was definitely a great positive; three bonus points. And then qualifying No. 4, running that 3.710, that was good to stay in the top five, and staying in the top five of qualifying is our goal for the year at every event.”
After dealing with the heat all weekend in Phoenix, Brown will switch modes again as the NHRA Mission Foods Series heads further West to race in the shadows of the San Gabriel Mountains.
“We’re going to regroup and get ready for Pomona,” Brown said. “The weather is going to be cold and fast out there, so we’ll go back to a really fast set-up. We’ll see what we can do there, starting off in qualifying. But all in all, it was a decent performance this weekend for sure. Very proud of my team and where we’re headed.”
Brown and the Matco Tools Top Fuel team will be back on track in just a few days at the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals, March 28-30, at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip in Pomona, Calif.
This story was originally published on March 24, 2025. 
