Driving the same car he drove last year, Antron Brown put the Matco Tools dragster on top of the field with an impressive warm weather setup. Brown ran a 3.881 second, 316.60 mph which just beat out Larry Dixon's 3.894 second, 314.24 pass in the opposite lane during first day qualifying at the NHRA Summitracing.com Nationals in Las Vegas.

Brown's run was the slowest qualifying pass of the season to take the number one spot. Brown's first round pass, a 5.085 run was ninth of the day at that time.

Driving the same car he drove last year, Antron Brown put the Matco Tools dragster on top of the field with an impressive warm weather setup. Brown ran a 3.881 second, 316.60 mph which just beat out Larry Dixon's 3.894 second, 314.24 pass in the opposite lane during first day qualifying at the NHRA Summitracing.com Nationals in Las Vegas.

Brown's run was the slowest qualifying pass of the season to take the number one spot. Brown's first round pass, a 5.085 run was ninth of the day at that time.

“We called an .88 and we ran an .88 with a one,” said Brown of his second round run. “When you've got a group of guys like that, that can call that, especially the way the track was – I'm just fortunate to be part of that team.

“Conditions definitely came back to us,” admitted Brown.

Saturday's final two qualifying runs are going to be extremely important according to Brown. While he thinks Sunday is going to start out with conditions much closer to those he faced in the first round – 128 degree track temperatures – the final rounds should offer up conditions closer to track temps the competitors will see tomorrow.

“I think tomorrow is suppose to be more overcast. I think Sunday is going to be closer to what we saw today but we'll start earlier. Hopefully, tomorrow we can stay in the top five in qualifying.”

The most important part of Saturday qualifying will be the opportunity to see both lanes in similar conditions. On this day, an almost 20 degree temperature difference between rounds was more than a team likes to see when it comes to making lane choice.

“Lane choice is going to be a key factor if one lane gets better than the other on race day. We definitely want to go into Sunday with lane choice and hold it.”

Despite the difference in conditions, the second run round did provide valuable information.

“On race day, we have to go by the temperature. If we get cloud cover and the track drops to around 106 degrees then we have a run for that.”

Last year, when Brown got on a run, he got on a run, which didn't bode well for the competition. From the look in his eyes, Brown appears to be on the start of another run like last year.