Antron Brown sent a strong message Sunday evening at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona.

Brown wants the competition to know that he’s got every intention of making the Matco Tool-sponsored dragster the one to beat in 2010. He had the car to beat in the regular season but the Countdown to 1 playoffs just didn’t work in his favor.

“We're definitely looking forward to next year,” said Brown, as he celebrated his sixth 2009 win. “This year was a career year out of all my years of NHRA drag racing. We just have to tackle this Countdown a little different way next year.”

Antron Brown sent a strong message Sunday evening at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona.

Brown wants the competition to know that he’s got every intention of making the Matco Tool-sponsored dragster the one to beat in 2010. He had the car to beat in the regular season but the Countdown to 1 playoffs just didn’t work in his favor.

“We're definitely looking forward to next year,” said Brown, as he celebrated his sixth 2009 win. “This year was a career year out of all my years of NHRA drag racing. We just have to tackle this Countdown a little different way next year.”

Brown’s latest victory came at the expense of Spencer Massey, whose victory over Larry Dixon in the semi-finals handed the 2009 championship to DSR teammate Tony Schumacher.

And for Brown, that countdown to a better 2010 began last month when Don Schumacher purchased the assets of Mike Ashley Racing. Schumacher’s purchase of the team marked the fourth time that particular grouping of talent had been purchased.

“Being with DSR is going to make a big difference,” Brown predicted. “It's already making dividends. We got our car turned around this weekend. Brian and Mark, my hat is off to them and all our boys. They just kept on digging. They wouldn't say no and the performance came back. We're just going to hit it harder. We have a lot more resources. It's only going to make us even stronger.”

And on a day where he had to beat Urs Erbacher, Brandon Bernstein, Schumacher and Massey, Brown needed every ounce of strength he could conjure.

“That was a whole new package that we were running this weekend,” he added. “We ran out of our stuff that we were doing so well with during the middle of the season. It kind of bit us in the Countdown. It's sad to say but we never counted on going that many rounds in the season, before the countdown. We were up over 40, 45 round wins. We ran out of a lot of stuff.”

When he pulled alongside of Schumacher for their quarter-final matchup, the championship had already been determined. How would Brown have reacted against Schumacher if the title was still on the line?

Brown said no different than any other driver.
 
“Larry and Schumacher had everything to lose in those rounds,” Brown said. “The pressure and the stakes were high. We have no orders on our team to do specific things, even though we are owned by the same team owner, we all have different sponsors. You have to go out there and race. If I was in the championship running I wouldn't want Tony to do something for me to win a championship.”

Brown knew win, lose or draw he had the support of the team owner.

“Right when Tony just won a championship he came in my lane, pointed at me and told me, 'good luck and kick his son's butt.' That's pretty cool,” Brown confirmed.

Brown came up there with expectations to do his bosses bidding.

“We went up there and we gave the car what we think the track can handle,” he continued. “We said, 'what we need to do this round is to run an 81 or 82 and if we get beat, we get beat. We figured Tony could run .81 or .83 and they went an .83. We had to be there and I had to be sharp on the tree. We gave it everything we got and ended up on the right side of the chips.”

Advertisement