Brown Drives Toyota To Victory At NHRA Finals
LAS VEGAS, Nv – Antron Brown defeated Steve Torrence on a holeshot to win the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series’ NHRA Finals 
at The Strip At Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Sunday.
The long-time Toyota driver earned his first win of the shortened 2020 campaign and the 51st Top Fuel victory of his career – just one shy of Joe Amato for third all-time.
After qualifying fourth on Saturday, Brown opened the day up by running the second-quickest pass of the first round with a 3.720 to defeat fellow Toyota driver Tony Schumacher, who had won the most recent event in Houston. In round two, Brown had an advantage on the tree against Clay Millican and never trailed on the way to running the quickest pass of the round with a 3.761. That would set up a semifinal match-up with Billy Torrence. Brown took the lead from the start and went on to the victory as Torrence’s car quit midway through the run.
In the finals against Steve Torrence, Brown had a decided advantage on the tree with an .042 reaction time and never trailed, despite Torrence running a 3.740 compared to Brown’s 3.759, with a final margin of victory of .023 seconds.
Brown was the only Toyota Top Fuel driver to advance beyond the first round on Sunday. Doug Kalitta’s Top Fuel championship hopes came to an end with a first-round loss to Justin Ashley, despite running the third-quickest pass of the first round (3.733 seconds), behind only Ashley and Brown.
Shawn Langdon also fell in the opening round after losing a blower belt against Clay Millican.
In Funny Car, Alexis DeJoria advanced to her third semifinals in the last four races by defeating Terry Haddock in round one and Blake Alexander in the second round before falling to eventual Funny Car champion and overall race winner Matt Hagan in the semifinals. Her performance continued a strong run that has seen the ROKiT Toyota Camry qualify in the top five in each of the last five races and earn the fourth-highest Funny Car point total over the last half of the season with the first-year DC Motorsports team.
J.R. Todd advanced to the second round in his DHL Camry Funny Car, knocking off Tim Wilkerson in round one, before falling to Ron Capps.
The NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series will kick off its 2021 season with the 52nd annual Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla., March 12-14.
