DSR heads to Maple Grove for the NHRA Fall Classic

Red-hot Brown, Matco team will go pink for Komen this weekend intent to raise points lead, awareness for ‘Tools for the Cause’

BROWNSBURG, IN – No one in Top Fuel is hotter than Antron Brown and the Matco Tools team so it’s appropriate that their dragster will be dressed in a hot color for this weekend’s Keystone NHRA Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway near Reading, Pa.

Antron has won the past two weekends in the NHRA Countdown to the Championship playoff to take a 77-point lead over Don Schumacher Racing teammate Tony Schumacher with four playoff races to go.

Although Maple Grove is one of only four NHRA tracks where Antron has not left with an NHRA Wally trophy, two years ago he set the NHRA elapsed time record of 3.701 at the track; he until he broke it six weeks ago at Brainerd, Minn., with a time of 3.680, which was the first sub 3.7-second run ever.

“We’re going back to my home track and want to reset that record with our pink Tools for the Cause car,” said Brown, who is the 2012 Top Fuel champion with 53 wins including six this year that ties his career best.

And it is doubly appropriate that the color is hot pink as Antron for the fourth year will lead the Matco Tools’ “Tools for the Cause” campaign to raise funds for Susan G. Komen ® and awareness for Breast Cancer Awareness month.

Antron will debut the pink dragster adorned with 262 names of members of the Matco family afflicted with breast cancer for the third stop in the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series championship playoff.

Among the names will be that of his mother-in-law, Linda Matranga, a breast cancer survivor.

Through August, the Matco Tools for the Cause campaign has raised more than $600,000. Antron and the Matco team led by crew chiefs Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald will carry the theme to October races in Dallas and Las Vegas.

“October is a very important month in our series because it’s right in the middle of our Countdown playoff, but October means even more to our Matco Tools team here at DSR,” Antron said. “My wife’s mother is a breast cancer survivor, and this disease has affected our family as it has many others.

“I’m excited to drive for all those touched by this disease, and we can continue to drive awareness for such a great cause.”

And the Matco dragster certainly is an attention grabber regardless of color.

After three straight weekends to open the Countdown, the series is scheduled to take a weekend off before heading to the Texas Motorplex near Dallas

Hagan, Rocky/Mopar team to focus first on qualifying performance at this weekend’s NHRA Countdown race at Maple Grove Raceway

– To race on Sunday in the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing series, you must first qualify for the 16-car field. Qualifying well is the number one goal on any weekend for Matt Hagan and the Rocky Boots/Mopar Express Lane team.

Last weekend was no exception when the team qualified No. 1 with the second quickest elapsed time in history and went on to runner-up at the NHRA Midwest Nationals near St. Louis. They’ll look to repeat their strong qualifying performance this weekend at Maple Grove Raceway in Reading, Pa.

“I think last weekend was the perfect example of how qualifying well effects race day,” Matt said. “We didn’t have an easy day by any means, but when you qualify well you set yourself up to have a better day. We had one lucky round last weekend and sometimes that’s what it takes.”

The Rocky/Mopar team led by crew chief Dickie Venables now has two 3.8-second Funny Car passes and were the first team to reach the 330-mph mark in their Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car.

“You have to keep working, you have to keep digging,” Matt said. “Now that we have some data from a couple 3.8-second runs to work off we can start running some low 3.9s on a consistent basis. But it all really depends on track conditions, the weather and what Dickie feels comfortable doing with this racecar. If you give Dickie enough time and enough data, he’ll figure it out. That’s what we’re seeing right now.”

The Keystone Nationals at Maple Grove is the third of six races in the Countdown to the Championship playoffs. With their performance last weekend, the team moved from fourth to second in Funny Car standings. Del Worsham holds the top spot, 90 points ahead of the Mopar team after Worsham won the first two Countdown races.

“One thing for sure about the Countdown is that nothing is for sure,” he said. “There’s a lot of racing left to do this season and it could go either direction. We just have to keep going down track and take it one lap at a time and the points will be what they’ll be. We’re just going to keep focusing on what we’re doing and not worry about anything else.”

Career best time, speed keep NAPA, Capps in Countdown hunt

– Improvements in drag racing usually are measured by increments of thousandths of a second and less than 1 mph.

That wasn’t the case for the NAPA AUTO PARTS Funny Car team last weekend near St. Louis when they shattered Ron Capps’ career best numbers for time and speed at Gateway Motorsports Park.

Ron’s elapsed time and speed Saturday night in the last qualifying session was 3.937 seconds at 327.19 mph.

That time bettered his previous bests of 3.964 set in 2012 at Englishtown, N.J., and speed of 324.12 mph from Topeka four months ago.

The NAPA Dodge Charger R/T team led by crew chief Rahn Tobler advanced to the semifinals round Sunday marking its best finish in the past 10 events of the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series.

“Tobler and our NAPA Know How guys really had our Dodge running this weekend, and we want to keep that up and start moving up in the standings,” said Ron, who owns 45 NHRA Wally trophies.

The NAPA Dodge will be ranked sixth when it begins racing Friday in the Keystone NHRA Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway near Reading, Pa., in the third of six races in the Countdown to the Championship playoff.

Ron, who won two of this year’s first five event titles, is only one point behind John Force in fifth place and 60 outside of second. Del Worsham of Kalitta Motorsports is the leader after winning the past two races and leads Ron by 150.

“Everyone in Funny Car has really stepped it up and we expect more 3-second runs this weekend at Maple Grove where it is supposed to be pretty cool and that should be ideal for the new racing surface they’ve put in,” Ron said.

“Sure, we’d like to be higher in points but we can make a big jump after Maple Grove and it wouldn’t surprise me if someone sets a national record for E.T. and get those 20 bonus points. No reason why it can’t be our NAPA team.”

The NAPA team has been the quickest in each of the past two opening qualifying sessions, and Ron knows the importance of that.

“I can’t stress enough how important that first qualifying run is on Friday, and we hadn’t been doing that,” he said. “When that happens you know you’ll be solid in the top-16 and can start tuning the car on what you learned and then shoot for big numbers. We expect to do that. We knew we could run better than we had been.

“Championships aren’t won when you’re running great and everything seems to just flow; championships are won when you’re not doing well but somehow weather through it. That’s what Tobler and this great NAPA team did at Gateway.”

After three straight weekends to open the Countdown, the series is scheduled to take a weekend off after Maple Grove before heading to the Texas Motorplex near Dallas Oct. 16-18.

Beckman feels pressure for this weekend’s Maple Grove race for Infinite Hero Dodge Charger team to begin move upward

– Jack Beckman and Don Schumacher Racing’s Infinite Hero Funny Car team couldn’t be happier that there are only five days between their last outing in the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series and this weekend’s Keystone NHRA Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway near Reading, Pa.

The Infinite Hero Dodge Charger R/T team led by crew chief Jimmy Prock was the runaway hottest car over the last five events of the 18-race Mello Yello regular season by earning four No. 1 qualifying positions, winning three times and sweeping the U.S. Nationals by adding the $100,000 Traxxas Nitro Shootout trophy. The team also reset the national record twice and recorded several track records along the way.

But when the Countdown began two weeks ago, other teams stepped up their games to catch Jack and Prock and the Infinite Hero team lost in the opening round of eliminations and lost the championship points lead. Then Sunday near St. Louis, the Infinite Hero team rebounded with an impressive 3.907-second time to only qualify third.

Then they stumbled in eliminations on Sunday with two tire-smoking runs that included a loss in the quarterfinals. Adding to the early exit, Del Worsham of Kalitta Motorsports took Jack’s national record and went on to win the NHRA Wally trophy for the second straight week.

That has dropped Jack to fourth in points and 119 out of first heading to Maple Grove for the third of six races in the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series Countdown to the Championship playoff.

“Don’t count us out by a long shot,” Jack said of getting his second Funny Car world championship in four years. “We’re smart enough to figure this out. We might need a little racing luck to get back in it, but I think we’ll be contending the last day of the season at Pomona.”

Worsham gained 20 bonus points for setting the NHRA elapsed time record, but Jack knows conditions could be even better when racing begins Friday at Maple Grove.

“Maple Grove might have national-record type conditions. We basically put ourselves in a position where we’re going to need to set a record and win the race to get back in this. It will sure make a great story at the end of the year if we can do all those things.

“We didn’t think it would be easy sailing, but this is the very thing that you don’t want to do it the Countdown.”

Jack returned to his home in Southern California late Sunday night then was back at the airport before dawn Tuesday to fly east for an appearance for Schumacher Electric Corp. in Memphis before heading to Reading to visit Odyssey Battery and EnerSys headquarters.

“My regular routine is that I don’t have a regular routine,” he said. “I always feel that drivers who don’t enjoy fan interaction and don’t enjoy sponsor appearances have a really big mountain to climb because if you’re just doing this for seat-time in the race car that’s such a small percentage of your time.

“I enjoy sponsor appearances and interacting with companies away from the racetrack. And I love fan interaction wherever it is; I’m still a fan and would be out here on the other side of the rope if I didn’t have this job. I’ll never forget that.”

Championship fight still a reality for Langdon as he flies special Odyssey Battery colors this weekend at Maple Grove Raceway

– Home field advantage is key in major sports leagues and Shawn Langdon might just have that this weekend at Maple Grove Raceway near Reading, Pa.

Not personally, since Langdon is a California native and lives near Indianapolis, but his 10,000-horsepower dragster will be flying the colors of Odyssey Battery, whose EnerSys headquarters, is located in Reading, which isn’t far from where the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series will make its stop during this weekend’s third event of the six-race Countdown to the Championship playoff.

Before taking to the track, Shawn and Don Schumacher Racing teammate Jack Beckman will meet with employees at EnerSys headquarters and have the Odyssey Battery Top Fuel dragster in tow.

“We are excited to welcome the DSR racing team to our corporate headquarters and meet with their fans not only here in the office but at our local track, Maple Grove Raceway as well,” said Maria Orlando-Krick, market content and sponsorship manager at EnerSys. “We wish them good luck and success this weekend and hope that our “home field” advantage works in their favor.”

EnerSys is the global leader in stored energy solutions for industrial applications. They manufacture and distribute reserve power and motive power batteries, battery chargers, power equipment, battery accessories and outdoor equipment enclosure solutions to customers worldwide.

After a second round loss at last weekend’s NHRA Midwest Nationals near St. Louis, the Odyssey/Red Fuel/Sandvik team with Langdon led by crew chiefs Todd Okuhara and Phil Shuler is 10th in Top Fuel points standings, but less than two rounds of racing out of third place.

“The goal is to compete for a championship and I won’t give up on that until the door is completely closed,” Langdon said. “At this point it’s starting to become a little bit of a longshot, but you look at how tight it is and I’m only a round and a half out of third place. We’ve got a great car and since we tested at Indy, we’ve made six good runs down the track. We have a car that can compete.”

The NHRA Keystone Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway kicks off on Friday with two qualifying runs and final qualifying on Saturday before Sunday’s championship eliminations.