“It’s been a long time since we won,” said Dixon. “You never know when you’re going to get the next one. Antron does such a great job in the car, and (his crew chiefs) Brian (Corradi) and Mark (Oswald) had their car running really well. Obviously, (my crew chiefs) Jason (McCulloch) and Ronnie (Thompson) didn’t take them lightly. We made our best run in the final round, we needed every bit of it. It was really nice to go some rounds today and get back in this points deal. It’s nice to win, but to have a shot at a championship is a big deal, a really big deal.”

A close look at Antron Brown’s cockpit that had to be changed.

Antron Brown lost a close final-round race, but his overall weekend success allowed the Matco Tools Top Fuel dragster driver to leave the desert on top in the 2011 NHRA Full Throttle Countdown to the Championship standings.

The 35-year-old Don Schumacher Racing driver was edged out for the event trophy by Larry Dixon; the margin a scant eight-thousandths of a second. Brown posted a 3.967-second pass with a .067-second reaction time to Dixon’s 3.955 and .071.

“You’re always disappointed when you get to a final and don’t seal the deal,” said the New Jersey native. “You always want to win, but looking at the weekend in total – it was a success. We made up a lot of ground – 85 points in the standings.

“I’m not surprised about our results, because Mark and Brian (Oswald and Corradi, co-crew chiefs), as well as the entire Matco Tools/U.S. Army crew, have done a great job of giving me a great, competitive race car, regardless of the racing conditions, all year.

“It was hot all weekend and the track was tricky, but the guys got us down the track consistently well and quick.”

En route to his final-round appearance, Brown defeated three drivers fighting for Countdown positions. First, it was David Grubnic, followed by two drivers directly behind Brown in the standings, Del Worsham and DSR/U.S. Army teammate Tony Schumacher.

Terry McMillen was prepared for a fight on Sunday. He wasn’t prepared for what happened.

“We struggled through qualifying, but we were encouraged,” McMillen said. “The car had good early numbers it just kept spinning the tire on the big end. We just attributed it to the heat and felt like we could calm it down enough on Sunday to have a competitive car.”

Team Amalie took the 16th spot for Sunday’s race and faced Larry Dixon in the first round. The race was over before it started as McMillen launched his 8,000 horsepower car before the Christmas Tree was fully activated.

“There’s absolutely no excuse for that,” a dejected McMillen said after the race. “I still really don’t know what happened up there. Maybe I saw Larry’s prestage bulb flicker, I don’t know. I saw something flicker and I just left. There’s no excuse for it. I’m just sorry I let a lot of people down.”

“Richard (Hartman, crew chief) and my guys gave me a very good car on race day,” McMillen continued. “The car went right down the track. It didn’t drop any holes it was smooth. We don’t really know what the elapsed time would have been since I left before the tree was activated, but when we laid it over our other runs in looked like maybe a 3.98 or 4.00. Would it have beat Larry? We’ll never know, but it would have been a drag race.”