Five-time U.S. Nationals winner Antron Brown returned to one of his most successful tracks seeking a sixth victory at the prestigious event. The four-time NHRA Top Fuel world champion opened eliminations with his quickest pass of the weekend before his pursuit ended in the second round at Indianapolis Raceway Park.<\/p>\n
Brown, who won the U.S. Nationals twice in Pro Stock Motorcycle in 2000 and 2004 and three times in Top Fuel in 2011, 2022 and 2023, qualified the Matco Tools Eagle Experience Top Fuel dragster in the No. 10 position.<\/p>\n
The NHRA top 75 driver began the five-session qualifying format with a 4.206-second pass at 207.94 mph, placing him in the provisional No. 15 position. He made a strong move during Friday\u2019s second session, powering to a 3.797 at 330.07 to lead the round, earn three bonus points and move into the No. 6 spot.<\/p>\n
Brown added another qualifying bonus point Saturday afternoon when his 3.937 at 313.73 ranked third quickest of the third session. He encountered tire smoke near half-track during the fourth qualifying round and slowed to a 4.996 at 146.18, dropping to the No. 10 position.<\/p>\n
In the fifth and final session, Brown guided the Matco Tools Eagle Experience dragster straight down the track in 3.885 seconds at 316.97 mph to secure the No. 10 starting position.<\/p>\n
Brown opened Monday\u2019s eliminations in a marquee matchup against Ida Zetterstr\u00f6m. He gained the starting-line advantage and never trailed, racing to his best performance of the weekend with a 3.737 at 333.74 to earn the round win.<\/p>\n
In the second round, Brown posted a solid 3.838 at 319.82, but it wasn\u2019t enough to defeat Tony Stewart\u2019s 3.740-second pass at 336.74 mph, ending Brown\u2019s pursuit of another U.S. Nationals victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe definitely made a good lap the first lap and then felt comfortable going in that last round,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThey went out there and ran a 3.740, so hats off to them and you\u2019ve got to give credit where credit is due. We dropped a hole before the 330, so we were right there on pace with them. We looked at the data, and it should\u2019ve been a lot closer drag race, but they still would\u2019ve got it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t say it wasn\u2019t a bad weekend \u2013 it wasn\u2019t a great weekend. We really would have liked to take it home, but this is the U.S. National, so it was a feat to qualify here and to get past first round. But we\u2019ve got a lot more racing left to do. If we can\u2019t get the U.S. Nationals [win], it\u2019s time to go after trying to get that championship.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the NHRA regular season complete, Brown now turns his attention to the Countdown to the Championship. The four-time Top Fuel world champion enters the playoffs fifth in the standings as he begins his pursuit of a fifth championship.<\/p>\n
Brown and the Matco Tools team will return to competition at the inaugural NHRA Great Lakes Nationals at U.S. 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Michigan.<\/p>\n
The post Five-Time NHRA U.S. Nationals Winner Antron Brown Powers to Quarterfinals at Indy<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Five-time U.S. Nationals winner Antron Brown returned to one of his most successful tracks seeking a sixth victory at the prestigious event. The four-time NHRA Top Fuel world champion opened eliminations with his quickest pass of the weekend before his pursuit ended in the second round at Indianapolis Raceway Park. Brown, who won the U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}