It appeared Shawn Langdon might clinch his first NHRA Top Fuel world championship at the Toyota Nationals in Las Vegas Sunday.

Antron Brown never received that memo.

Instead, the reigning world champ kept his season title hopes alive by defeating Clay Millican in the final round Sunday at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

It appeared Shawn Langdon might clinch his first NHRA Top Fuel world championship at the Toyota Nationals in Las Vegas Sunday.

Antron Brown never received that memo.

Instead, the reigning world champ kept his season title hopes alive by defeating Clay Millican in the final round Sunday at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Brown recorded a 3.782-second lap at 324.51 mph to defeat Millican’s 3.822-second time. Langdon smoked the tires and lost to Millican in the semifinals.

“Hats off to all of our boys,” Brown said. “We have just been working hard. We struggled in the middle of the year. What I’m proud about the most is the way we just kept our heads down and we never gave up. When we were making some mistakes in the middle of the season we just put our heads down and worked harder. We worked harder and we went testing every Monday. Let me tell you something we were the winner of the Monday Nationals a lot of times this year, but it made us better. We learned a whole bunch of new things and we just kept on digging. It is not over until it is over.”

This was Brown’s fourth win of the season and 25th Top Fuel win of his career. More importantly, Brown moved up from fifth to second in the point standings 102 points behind Langdon with one race to go.

NHRA’s season finale is the Auto Club Finals Nov. 7-10 in Pomona, Calif. The most points a driver can collect at Pomona is 150. Brown won the 2012 Top Fuel world title when Brandon Bernstein upset second-place finisher Tony Schumacher in the final round at Pomona.

“Last year Tony came within seven points of winning the championship,” Brown said. “You are never out until the last race of the year. We are going to give it all we have got and take it one round at a time and there is still some hope out there. I treat every race like a new race no matter how well we do there or bad we have done there. We have won Pomona (2009, 2010) and we have been runner-up at the beginning of the year. Last year we had some mishaps, but that can happen at any race. I’m going in there with my head down and give it every ounce of juice I have got. We are going to go up in there and give the glory to God and have faith and we are going to give it everything we have got.”

In the midst of his struggles this season, Brown admitted there was a turning point.

“The Countdown gives you the opportunity to come back in the mix,” Brown said. “We came back in the mix and then we had that (DNQ) at Charlotte (Sept. 13-15) and that really took a lot of air out of our tires. All the front runners went out first round and it eased the bleeding a little bit, but if we just would have qualified at that race, that’s probably 50 points right there. You can’t lose faith and you can’t lose hope and the good Lord knows you just have to put the work in and we have been putting the work in. That’s how you come back from ninth in the points in the Countdown (after Charlotte) to all the way to second place in the Countdown and it is not done until it is over.”

Brown also knows nothing comes easy in the Top Fuel class.

“This year has been even tougher,” Brown said. “The thing about it is a lot of people see Al-Anabi, and they see Morgan Lucas Racing, they see Vandergriff Racing, Kalitta Racing, everybody is running so tough and so strong. Brittany Force is coming out running strong and our (Don Schumacher Racing) teammates (Tony Schumacher and Spencer Massey) we are all battling this year. Nobody has an easy first-round match-up. If you sneeze, you are done. It made me go back and do some homework and work harder. If you don’t cut better than a 60 light you are going home. The car has been running phenomenal since St. Louis (Sept. 27-29) on. Our car has been mean. I don’t want to go out there and be late on the tree and lose the race. I have been working hard trying to keep the car straight. It has been rough and next year is not going to be any easier.”

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