TOP FUEL

(Don Figler photo)

Antron Brown with crew chiefs Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald along with members of the Toyota/Matco Tools team put their Don Schumacher Racing dragster into the winner's circle. It is the team's third win of the season but first since May near Atlanta and the first time the team advanced to the semifinals since July 28 at Sonoma, Calif. Brown's win - DSR's 217th and 21st of the season - stopped the mega-team’s longest stretch of not winning since it went winless over three consecutive races midway through 2011.

The victory kept Brown's hopes of defending his championship alive but with three events left in the six-race NHRA Countdown to the Championship he trails points leader Shawn Langdon by 102 points and knows there still is a hill to climb.

"Our goal from here on out is to go race like every race is the last race. We're going to push hard; we're going to push really hard," said Brown, who won his 40th NHRA title including 24 in Top Fuel. "Hopefully we can go out and qualify in the top half of the field again next weekend (at Maple Grove Raceway at Reading, Pa.) then we'll take it one round at a time.

"At the next two races if we can creep up and gain some points here and there, we can go into that last race in Pomona (Calif.) with a shot at it. All we want is to have a shot to win the championship again. It's still in our scope, so we're not going to let that go. And, we're going to give it everything we've got."

Brown, who qualified sixth at Gateway, beat DSR teammate Tony Schumacher in the semifinals before using a run of 3.788 seconds at 322.88 mph to top Khalid alBalooshi's 3.833 seconds (319.98) for Al-Anabi Racing.

It was Brown's first win over Schumacher in six meetings this season.