{"id":10398,"date":"2014-12-30T10:46:14","date_gmt":"2014-12-30T18:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=10398"},"modified":"2014-12-30T10:46:14","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T18:46:14","slug":"antron-brown-keeps-moving-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/antron-brown-keeps-moving-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Antron Brown Keeps Moving Forward"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"14AntronBrownHoustonWallyPhoto<\/a><\/p>\n

2012 Top Fuel champion Antron Brown was having a great 2014 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing season building up to the Countdown; he won five times in the first 18 races and entered the championship chase in the No. 2 position with only \u00a0Doug Kalitta in front of him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It seemed like all he needed for his second championship was stay the course.\u00a0 He already had wins in Phoenix, Houston, Charlotte’s 4-Wide, Chicago, and Norwalk, but just as the Countdown was about to crank up, his Don Schumacher Racing\/Matco Tools dragster suddenly hit a performance slump.<\/p>\n

At Indy\u2019s U.S. Nationals, he barely made the field, pitting him against teammate and eventual 2014 champ, Tony Schumacher.\u00a0 Then on a treacherous track at Charlotte, his outcome was over early against another DSR teammate, Spencer Massey. When that event was moved to Dallas after a rain postponement, his team was still trying to find its center.\u00a0 Brown qualified 13th<\/sup> in Dallas and lost to Al-Anabi\u2019s Shawn Langdon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just didn\u2019t hit it right,\u201d said a determined Brown.\u00a0 \u201cIn the Countdown, as with any other form in racing, you definitely have to have the little things, like luck, go your way.\u00a0 We went into it hard and thought we had a good shot at it.\u00a0 The first race of the Countdown [Charlotte] didn\u2019t go the way we planned and it kind of set us back a little bit…we had a double race in Dallas and that definitely played to the favor of Tony [Schumacher], my teammate.\u00a0 He had his car on cue.\u00a0 His car ran so well at Charlotte and he brought that momentum with him to Dallas and they pulled off two wins in one race weekend.\u00a0 That\u2019s what really gave them the edge in the way they raced in the Countdown.\u00a0 The first two events they just capitalize on it and they did an outstanding job at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"14AntronBrownHoustonLaunch\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Getting their on-track act back in concert, the DSR Top Fuel team led by Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald gathered it together, rebounding in St. Louis, winning the event and cutting Schumacher\u2019s lead to 80 points.\u00a0 He jumped from eighth to fourth in the Countdown standings just that quickly after the first three of six Countdown races.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got ourselves back into contention for the championship in St. Louis and then headed to Reading and qualified decent, but we lost first round.\u00a0 We just tried to give it too much.\u00a0 When you lose first round, it puts you right back in the same situation,” explains Brown. \u00a0“We ran Vegas and we didn\u2019t run the way we would have liked and stayed out and tested.\u00a0 We had nothing to lose.\u00a0 We went to our six-disc clutch setup that we were planning on running next year and our car bounced right back to where it used to be.\u00a0 We knew that going into Pomona, but we still wanted to take a chance going with a new setup that we didn\u2019t have that many laps on.\u00a0 We had some laps throughout the year on it in qualifying and we were comfortable with it.\u00a0 When you think about it, it\u2019s hard to switch from something that got you so many round wins in the beginning and the middle of the year.\u00a0 We stuck to our guns too long.\u00a0 That\u2019s pretty much what I would say that happened to us this year in the Countdown.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team rallied for Pomona\u2019s NHRA Finals, qualifying No. 2 with a superb near national record run of 3.720 seconds, but at that point the championship was gone. \u00a0The determined DSR\/Matco team never quit, though, and improving their position still remained paramount.<\/p>\n

\"14AntronBrownBurnoutPHOTO\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe lost to Morgan Lucas in the semi-finals, who went on to win the race,\u201d Brown said.\u00a0 \u201cWe set the second quickest ET of the first round, low ET of the second round and the second quickest time in the semi-finals to Morgan who just threw a life shattering run on us(3.707 to Brown\u2019s 3.742 ET). \u00a0 If we would have won that round of racing, it would have placed us fourth place in points right there.\u00a0 If we would have won the race, we would have been third place.\u00a0 If our car was capable of setting the world record, we would have moved up to second in points and then things might not have been that bad of a year.\u00a0 It was just that we got beat by Morgan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those incredible elapsed times were created with excellent weather, offering sporadic sunshine – just enough to put some heat in the track with low humidity.\u00a0 The NHRA Safety Safari prepped the track with grip and the crew chiefs pounced on it, giving the fans a real show in NHRA\u2019s finale of 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe kind of knew it was out there,\u201d said Brown.\u00a0 \u201cWe ran a 3.720 in qualifying where Morgan\u2019s teammate [Richie Crampton] went 3.711.\u00a0 When we ran our 72, we didn\u2019t make it to the end of the racetrack.\u00a0 If we had put our 74 back-half with our 72, we would\u2019ve gone out there with a 3.705.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo going into the semi-finals, our main focus was to do the same thing we just did.\u00a0 We were racing and not trying to go out there to set a world record.\u00a0 If we could have made it to the finals, we would have nothing to lose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown ended up seventh in the Mello Yello standings, 189 points behind Schumacher.<\/p>\n

With the 2014 season in Brown\u2019s rear view, he feels fortunate to be surrounded by two long-time crew chiefs in Brian Corradi and former racer, Mark Oswald.\u00a0 This inventive duo have more tricks in their arsenal and own the NHRA National Top Fuel ET record of 3.701 seconds set in 2012 in Reading.<\/p>\n

\"14AntronBrownCelebrationPHOTO\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMark is just instrumental to what we do,\u201d the Brownsburg racer said.\u00a0 \u201cHe brings the calm while Brian Corradi stirs it up. \u00a0He\u2019s a crew chief and Mark is a crew chief, but Mark is like Brian\u2019s alter-ego.\u00a0 Mark is very scientific, he breaks things down.\u00a0 He\u2019s a really good engine guy and is just methodical in what he does.\u00a0 Brian and Mark are very good working with each other.\u00a0 There are no egos involved and they are always on the cusp of inventing things. \u00a0That\u2019s what I love about them. They are constantly thinking and making things better.\u00a0 They help me be a better driver.\u00a0 I think that\u2019s the key element of why we work so well together.\u00a0 We all do this together.\u00a0 If we should stumble at a racetrack with some sort of gremlin in the car; they are one of the quickest ones to ever figure what it is and get the car back on track.\u00a0 They are able to figure it out.\u00a0 That\u2019s what makes it so cool.\u00a0 It\u2019s that way in the good times and in the bad times.\u00a0 It\u2019s what keeps everything going and right for our team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Testing starts next year at the January 16-17 Pro Winter Warm-Up at Palm Beach International Raceway and it will be time to start all over.\u00a0 Brown is entering into his seventh Top Fuel season full of energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re going to go out there and work hard to implement all of our new stuff, for example, like the clutch program that we\u2019re running now,\u201d Brown said.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re hoping it\u2019s going to get hot down there, but it\u2019s never hot.\u00a0 We know how to run fast with the current combination.\u00a0 We want to practice on a track where it\u2019s really hot.\u00a0 That\u2019s where we really need to work on our combination for 2015.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2015 NHRA Mello Yello season kicks off in February at the Auto Club Raceway at Pomona on February 5 \u2013 8.<\/p>\n

All photos are Courtesy of NHRA Media<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2012 Top Fuel champion Antron Brown was having a great 2014 season heading into the Countdown. It seemed like all he needed to do to for his second championship was stay the course. <\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":10406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,3399],"tags":[554,82,2,7],"class_list":["post-10398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-nhra","tag-2014-nhra-mello-yello-drag-racing-series","tag-antron-brown","tag-drag-racing","tag-nhra"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/14AntronBrownHoustonWallyPhoto-feature1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-2HI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10398"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10617,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10398\/revisions\/10617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}