An aspiring drag racer -- or even a top-tier Pro Stock Motorcycle rider who wants to switch to the Top Fuel class -- has a plan that likely begins with attending Frank Hawley's Drag Racing School or perhaps Doug Foley's or Roy Hill's.
 
Antron Brown won the 1999 Auto Club of Southern California's "Road To The Future" Award that's given to a racer "destined for future greatness."  And he excelled in the Pro Stock Motorcycle class, winning 16 times in nine seasons and finishing second in the standings (to Angelle Sampey in 2001and to Andrew Hines in 2006).
 
When he chose at the end of the 2007 season to become a Top Fuel driver, he learned not the tricks of the trade but the trade itself from a variety of sources. And while he did graduate from Hawley's comprehensive program that includes extensive and intriguing classroom instruction, he also became a student in what he called "another school that's not offered to anybody." An aspiring drag racer -- or even a top-tier Pro Stock Motorcycle rider who wants to switch to the Top Fuel class -- has a plan that likely begins with attending Frank Hawley's Drag Racing School or perhaps Doug Foley's or Roy Hill's.
 
Antron Brown won the 1999 Auto Club of Southern California's "Road To The Future" Award that's given to a racer "destined for future greatness."  And he excelled in the Pro Stock Motorcycle class, winning 16 times in nine seasons and finishing second in the standings (to Angelle Sampey in 2001and to Andrew Hines in 2006).
 
When he chose at the end of the 2007 season to become a Top Fuel driver, he learned not the tricks of the trade but the trade itself from a variety of sources. And while he did graduate from Hawley's comprehensive program that includes extensive and intriguing classroom instruction, he also became a student in what he called "another school that's not offered to anybody."
 
Again he was a star student. He has parlayed his unorthodox education into an outstanding Top Fuel rookie season in 2008 (with a top-five finish, two victories in five final rounds, and three No. 1 qualifying positions) and the distinction of points leader heading into the 2009 Countdown to the Championship.
 
He said he had an edge at the outset of his Top Fuel racing.
 
"When I worked at DSR (Don Schumacher Racing and rode the U.S. Army bike), I was around the fuel cars a lot and I saw how they operate and how they worked on them. And I knew how the cars work. I was familiar with them a little bit before I actually got into it," he said. "And I went to Frank Hawley's Drag Racing School, where I was able to get my alcohol license in an alcohol dragster."
 
Then he got his chance to drive a 7,000-horsepower Top Fuel dragster, which is quite different.
 
"You don't get prepared for it or you don't know what a Top Fuel car is like until you get into one," Brown said. "I got with the right team and you need to get with the right crew and crew chief that can help you learn along the way, also."
 
Lee Beard, he said, "really showed me the ropes. He was a great teacher and a great ambassador of the sport and a wealth of knowledge that he never steered me wrong. I was like a sponge learning all I could and I had great people helping me, like my teammate last year, Hot Rod (Fuller), and Tony (Schumacher)."
 
Brown surprised many by challenging for the championship right away. At the season-opening Winternationals, he was top qualifier, sending the message that he was ready for the real-life tests.
 
"Tony, I came into the sport as a rookie and I think last year, I was on the edge of my seat like giving him some competition. We ran second for most of the year last year, and he was up there mentoring me and tutoring me," Brown said. "And that's where you learn about drag racing, because your competitors around you, they're pushing you. They are there to help. But you have to be willing to be determined to do it, because it doesn't just happen.
 
"You have to be able to do it," he said. "It's a react sport. You can't think about what you want to do. You have to do it. That's what really helped me in the transition, just racing all the years of Pro Stock motorcycle, I knew how to race and I knew how to react to things. When I got in the Top Fuel car, it was like learning all over again. But I knew the similarities were going to be the same mindset. I was out there to grow and learn some new mechanical skills to become a Top Fuel dragster driver."
 
Whatever he learned in 2008, it wasn't enough o keep him from being off-balance during last winter. That, too, was a learning experience away from the track.
 
"With all of the stuff that happened to our team in the off-season, when we switched team owners twice, we knew the first one, but the second one came by a surprise. And you never know until you get to that -- until you get there," Brown said.
 
Mike Ashley assumed ownership of the Matco Tools Dragster team that David Powers had begun. But he wasn't sure who would be tuning him, with Lee Beard moving over to DSR. He wasn't even sure who would be showing him driving tips, as Fuller did not return because his sponsor vanished. But Ashley brought in Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald, who had been heading his Funny Car crew.
 
With that move, Brown said, "I had a little sigh (of relief), because I worked with them over at DSR. I know Brian is very aggressive tuner, and I know Mark is like an engineer, and he's a tuner, and he knows how to drive the race car.
 
"So it was a great package all in one, where I got put into a school, another school that's not offered to anybody," he said. "Once I got to meet those guys and actually spend some time with them and we sent down and talked about the changes we were doing to race cars to make it  better for them and then we got to preseason testing, that's when everything calmed down. I saw what type of team we were going to have."
 
Brown said he felt confident about the personnel surrounding him. Still, he said, he wondered not if they would compete for a series title but "at what level." He said he soon learned.
 
"Once we got testing and I saw really all of our crew guys gelled with our new crew guys, and Brian and Mark and our relationships and the way that we have gelled together, then I knew that we had that dynamite team."
 
To this day, he'll tell you that he patterns his team after Schumacher's. And why not? They have been the yardstick for this decade's performance.
 
"I was there for five years where Tony won four straight world championships. In a row! I was there for four of them, and I saw what Tony had the passion that he had for the sport and I saw what his team did. And I was there and I saw the winning formula, and the winning formula is when you get all those guys to gel and they work as one tight unit," Brown said.
 
"And that's when you get those uncommon results, which is all those race wins, and being competitive and being able to bounce back when you have a problem, not taking a race to figure it out, taking one round to figure it out, because everybody worked so well together," he said.
 
"I saw that in my team and I said, 'Well, it will be a matter of time till we build and build and get stronger.' We grew and built quicker than I thought we would," Brown said. "And it was a surprise to me at a certain extent, but then once we got into it, I said that's what our team is all about and that's how hard we work and we are still getting after it. And I feel blessed to be a part of this team."
 
He is proof that education doesn't always come in the classroom -- or that the classroom might have blacktop rather than blackboards, a lot more math than expected, no recess, and Christmas trees all year long. That part's all academic, for Antron Brown has been drag racing's star pupil.

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