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BROWN’S REACTION TIME TAKES TOYOTA TO WINNER’S CIRCLE AT 4-WIDE

TORRANCE, CA Three drivers ran almost identical times, but it was Antron Brown’s superb 0.042-second reaction time at the Toyota Logostarting tree in today’s final round that gave him the victory at the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals at zMAX Dragway in Charlotte, N.C.

Brown edged fellow Toyota driver Shawn Langdon by .015 seconds, despite each running a 3.800-second pass in the finals.  Yet, neither ran low elapsed time of the round as each defeated third-place finisher J.R. Todd on hole-shots when Todd laid down a 3.799-second run. 

“Just an incredible day,” said Brown, who also won earlier this season at Phoenix. “All our Matco boys have been working so hard. It feels good to get another win; it’s tough enough just to win a round. To go out in the final round and do what we did is purely awesome. All these cars ran so good. Just to sneak one out felt good. Our car’s been running good. We didn’t want to push her too hard on the last lap so the boys eased her back a little.”

Khalid alBalooshi advanced to the second round today, while Richie Crampton smoked the tires in his first-round contest and was unable to advance to round out the Toyota Top Fuelers.

In Funny Car, once again it was Alexis DeJoria leading the way among the Toyota Camry drivers as she advanced to her third final round in five races this season.  DeJoria was the only driver to run in the 4.0’s in each round, but after winning each of her first two quads, she was third in the final to Robert Hight and John Force.

Del Worsham advanced out of the first round, but fell just short of reaching the finals in agonizing fashion.  Running in the same second round quad that DeJoria won, the race for the fourth spot in the finals came down to Worsham and Tim Wilkerson. Wilkerson had a .003-second advantage in reaction time, while Worsham was .003-second quicker in elapsed time, both running 4.12s, but Wilkerson got the win by less than a thousandth of a second.

Chad Head was in the opening quad with DeJoria and Worsham and was subsequently eliminated, despite running a 4.14 – his best time of the weekend.  Tony Pedregon also lost in the opening round, while Cruz Pedregon was unable to start after the team had troubles with the blower belt in the staging lanes.

The NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series will take next weekend off before resuming with the O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Spring Nationals at Royal Purple Raceway in Baytown, Tex., April 25-27.

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