BROWN LEADS TOYOTA AT NHRA MAPLE GROVE

PLANO, TX – Antron Brown advanced to the Top Fuel semi-finals to lead Toyota at the NHRA Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway in Mohnton, Pennsylvania, Sunday. The track entertained a record crowd over the course of the weekend.

Brown defeated fellow Toyota driver Richie Crampton in the first round and then knocked off pole-sitter Clay Millican in round two. In the semi-finals, he had a .028 advantage at the light, but eventually overpowered the track in falling to Brittany Force.

“It’s a little frustrating, but we have to look at where we started from,” Brown said. “We dug ourselves out of a hole this weekend in qualifying eighth. We ran good today, but had some blower belt issues where the belts were breaking on us. We should have run a .71 in the first round and then we ran a .77 in the second round and should have run a 3.75.  Our car was right there and we kept the car where it needed to be, but It got a little aggressive on us in the semi-final. We could have run anything and won that. That’s the disappointing part.

“But the one thing is we did win two rounds today and we have three rounds in the Countdown.  It’s not where we wanted to be right now, we wanted to win six rounds by now. This isn’t where we want to be, but we are going to go into St. Louis with our main focus in qualifying good and hit it hard. Everyone’s still right there in front of us. We just have to work hard right now. It’s going to be a tough one to pull out, but I like our chances the way our team competes.  We should have been in the final here and competing for a win. We’ll take our bumps and bruises right now and move forward.”

After qualifying second, Doug Kalitta won his opening round Top Fuel match-up against Audrey Worm, but then was unable to make a clean pass in round two and lost to Dom Lagana, who had eliminated Shawn Langdon earlier.

All three Camry Funny Car drivers fell in the opening round today.  J.R. Todd lost a close race against Tim Wilkerson, while neither Alexis DeJoria nor Cruz Pedregon were able to make clean passes in their first round defeats.
The NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series heads to Gateway Motorsports Park in suburban St. Louis next weekend for the AAA NHRA Midwest Nationals, September 29 – October 1.  The race will mark the midway point of the Countdown to the Championship Playoffs.