Antron Brown chasing more success, career milestone at LVMS

You would never know it from looking at him, but Antron Brown is getting to the age where a person of his talent begins to pass career milestones.

Brown, 45, one of drag racing’s most fit competitors, will be seeking his sixth Las Vegas Motor Speedway victory (tops among active drivers) in Sunday’s Denso Spark Plugs NHRA Four-Wide Nationals.

If he gets it, it will pull him into a tie with Joe Amato for third on the all-time Top Fuel win list with 52. Larry Dixon has 62. Then it’s a long leap to Brown’s former Don Schumacher Racing teammate Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher at 84.

“It’s pretty huge, but I never look at ’em,” the personable three-time Top Fuel champion said about lifetime accomplishments. “I’m in the middle of my career now. That’s what I call it. I think I’ve got another 15 years in me. We’ll see how it rides out.”

Brown’s victory in the 2020 LVMS fall race was his first since 2018 at Seattle and made it 12 seasons in 13 that he had won at least once since moving up to the Nitro class from Pro Stock Motorcycle, where he won 16 times. At his career pace of almost four wins per season, it’s conceivable he still could catch Schumacher atop the all-time win list.

He said his most recent victory at LVMS, following a winless 2019 season, came at “the right place, the right time.”

“We knew it was going to take time to get to where we need to be,” Brown said about a reorganization of his Toyota-powered MATCO Tools team. “The hardest part was COVID came up, and it just (devastated) everybody.”

With Brown and other star drivers regaining their strides and a crowd of around 10,000 expected — 50 percent of the Strip’s capacity as allowed under local COVID restrictions — things are slowly returning to normal after a 2020 season that was limited to 12 races of a scheduled 24.

“Hey everybody!” 16-time Funny Car champion John Force, who shuttered his team during the pandemic, cheerfully called out during an impromptu visit to the media center Friday. “I never get to see anybody. Thank you all for being here.”

The traditional season-opening Winternationals at Pomona, California, were rescheduled amid COVID restrictions and the Arizona Nationals were canceled, leaving a gap in the early season schedule. But barring further complications, the series will race 22 times this year, only two fewer than normal.

“Looking up and not seeing a packed house at Indy (for the U.S. Nationals) was a strange feeling,” Funny Car driver J.R. Todd said about last year’s truncated season. “But with 50 percent capacity and sold out at Las Vegas, I think we’re on the right track.”

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.