Brown, Matco team earn third straight No. 1 qualifying position, DSR teammate Hagan leads NHRA Funny Cars at Englishtown

ENGLISHTOWN, NJ – New Jersey native Antron Brown and the Matco Tools/U.S. Army team led by crew chiefs Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald earned the No. 1 qualifying position for the third straight race with a run in a track-record 3.725 seconds at 317.57 mph in the 46th annual Toyota Summernationals.

It is not only the first time he’s accomplished that in his NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series career but it ties for the most times (three) he’s qualified No. 1 in an entire season. It also is the first time an NHRA Top Fuel team has done it since 2012.

The current points leader in the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series from Chesterfield, N.J., which is about 30 miles from Old Bridge Township Raceway Park, grew up at the track watching his father and uncle race.

Although Antron, 39, won NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle trophies at Englishtown in 2002 and 2005, he has not found the Top Fuel winner’s circle with his Matco team. But he can break the barrier Sunday in championship eliminations that begin at 11 a.m. (ET).

It also would be his 50th NHRA national event title and move him into the top-10 for NHRA wins in all professional categories.

“It all can go together,” he said of driving his Matco dragster into the fabled Raceway Park winner’s circle and achieving the milestone. He has won 33 times in Top Fuel and 16 in Pro Stock Motorcycle.

“We’re not treating this like a home race, we’re treating it like any other race and we’re going to come in and hit it hard.”

In Funny Car, Matt Hagan and the Mopar Express Lane/Rocky Boots Dodge Charger R/T team led by crew chief Dickie Venables topped DSR’s entries with a time of 3.999 seconds at 315.05 mph and will start Sunday seeded fourth and will renew his rivalry with John Force in the first round.

Six of the DSR teams qualified in the top half of their fields to earn choice of lanes for the opening round, which begins at 11 a.m. (ET).

Only current Funny Car points leader Ron Capps and the NAPA AUTO PARTS 2015 Dodge Charger R/T team led by crew chief Rahn Tobler are barely in the lower half at No. 9 and will give up lane choice to the higher seeded Tim Wilkinson to open racing.

But No. 9 has worked out well for Capps and Tobler, who is going for the 50th win of his crew chief career.

The NAPA team has started in that spot in for three of this year’s nine Mello Yello events and has advanced to championship rounds twice from that position and posted one of its two wins as a first-round underdog.

Capps started the Summernationals weekend by leading teammate and reigning world champion Matt Hagan and the Mopar Express Lane/Rocky Boots Dodge by five points but that gap has been narrow to one point.

Hagan’s eighth run in less than 4 seconds on Friday was one of four in in the 3s in that session.

DSR teammate Tommy Johnson Jr. (Make-A-Wish), who was quickest in the first session, ranks fifth with a time of 4.003 at the event’s top speed of 315.27.

The stop in Englishtown is the first of three consecutive weekends of Mello Yello racing with the series moving to Epping, N.H., next weekend before heading south for Bristol, Tenn.