(Ron Lewis photo)

"What an awesome weekend for our team here at MAR," Brown said. "To bring a new sponsor like DirecTV onboard and win the race for them and Matco (Tools) and all of our awesome sponsors is so great. Our car ran great today. We found a small issue after the first round and we just took off. To run that 318 (mph) was awesome. This DirecTV car was a rocketship.

"To win our second race of the year and get the points lead back says so much about what a great team we have with Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald and Rob Wendland and all my guys. It's so fun to go out each week knowing we have a car that can win the race. We wish Bristol (Tenn.) was tomorrow. And we'll have 'big blue' back at Bristol with the Matco Tools Iron Eagle dragster."

Brandon Bernstein, who showed his driving skills by having the quickest reaction time against all four of his race day opponents, scored round wins against steep competition before a close final round loss to Antron Brown.

“We were so pumped up coming into this race,” said Brandon. “In the moments after the final round we were very disappointed not to have gotten a win for Budweiser here in their backyard to cap our 30th anniversary. But you have to stand back and take a look at the big picture. Three final rounds in seven races is something we can be very proud of as a team.”

In the first round of eliminations, the Bud/Lucas Oil team bettered their qualifying numbers to win wire to wire in a close match with Clay Millican, 3.900/302.82 vs. 3.919/306.74.

“Rob (Flynn, crew chief) and Mike (Guger, assistant crew chief) made a lot of changes between the end of qualifying and race day.  During qualifying we were getting some tire spin down track, so they were making adjustments to compensate for that. We thought we were making the right moves, but we really had to be ready for anything,” said Bernstein. “As it turned out the tune-up was just what the doctor ordered and it got us a round win.”

It was the final appearance of the Budweiser-sponsored dragster in Anheuser-Busch’s hometown.  (Jeff Burk photo)