What a difference a week makes for Antron Brown.

A week after losing in the first round at the Mile-High Nationals in Denver, Brown, the 2012 world champion, was Top Fuel royalty at the Sonoma (Calif.) Nationals Aug. 2.

Brown beat first-time Top Fuel finalist Dave Connolly to capture his fourth win of the season.

Brown clocked a 3.787-second elapsed time at 320.74 mph in his Don Schumacher Racing Matco Tools/U.S. Army dragster to beat Connolly, who drives for Bob Vandergriff Racing. Connolly came across the line at 3.808 seconds and 319.14 mph.

“This was just a great race weekend,” Brown said. “Anybody who can be a part of an organization such as DSR (Don Schumacher Racing), you’re just truly blessed to be a part of an organization like this. This whole organization has just grown over the years, and it’s not only a great organization, but also a great organization for the sport of NHRA.”

Connolly, who has 26 career Pro Stock national event wins, was trying to become the fourth driver in NHRA history to win a national event in more than one Pro category. The short list consists of Brown (Pro Stock Motorcycle, Top Fuel), Mark Osborne (Pro Stock, Pro Stock Truck) and Greg Stanfield (Pro Stock Truck, Pro Stock).

This was Brown’s 51st career national event win and fourth at Sonoma (2009, 2011, 2012 and 2014). He beat Steven Chrisman, Richie Crampton, Tony Schumacher and Connolly during his victory parade.

“You know what is real special about this track, once you come from Denver and you get off the plane and you take a breathe, you have a lot of energy and the cars feel it as well,” Brown said. “Our crew chiefs Brian (Corradi) and Mark (Oswald) love sea level race tracks. The car makes great power and when you have a track like it is here at Sonoma, one of the Bruton Smith tracks, everything just works so well here. When you get off to a great start in the first round of qualifying, like we did, it sets the tone for the whole weekend.”

Brown acknowledged nothing came easy in the semifinals and finals.

“When you’re talking about the U.S. Army car, Mike Green and the whole crew, that car has been phenomenal this whole year,” Brown said. “We know if you want to try and win a championship, it goes through that team. When you race them, you better bring you’re A-plus game and that’s what we did and we snuck by them. Then when we raced Connolly in the final, that’s another Schumacher Racing car because they buy all the parts from us. I’m looking at our boss man right now (Don Schumacher) and I’m locking up our doors when the Countdown comes. Dave Connolly did a phenomenal job driving and he had lane choice in the final. We came up, I saw the tree and I hit it as hard as I could and kept the car in the groove and those boys did a phenomenal job putting the car together.”

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