"Coming up to the final round, all I can say is our team definitely went through some adversity and were Army Strong," Brown said. "We had a main bearing problem before the final. The boys caught it after we warmed up because the car was smoking pretty bad.

"They were able to take it down, loosen everything on the car and we only had 15 minutes to get up there. It was crazy. It was crazy how focused our boys were and the communication was unparalleled. No one got in a panic, no one got in a rush and NHRA officials came over to get us and I said we're coming. They got it done, we dropped the car and we went up there. (Crew chief Mark Oswald) and Brian and those Matco Tools boys were spot on. Those Matco tools put the car back together to perfection and we pulled that win off."

It was the first career win for Brown at Norwalk, who now has wins at all but four NHRA tracks (Bristol, Epping, Reading and Topeka). The team also scored the event win near Chicago last weekend, marking the second time they've won back-to-back titles (Charlotte, Houston).

Steve Torrence beat three-time former world champion Larry Dixon in the first round before running afoul of 2012 champion and eventual race winner Antron Brown. Torrence covered the 1,000-foot course in 3.780 seconds at more than 327 mph to get his first ever round win against Dixon and put the brakes on a recent streak of first-round exits at the wheel of the CAPCO Contractors Top Fuel dragster.