Seven months ago, Antron Brown told his new car owner, Mike Ashley, he could win eight races and contend for a championship. Ashley responded by telling Brown to do get the job done – one round at a time.

With just three races remaining until the Countdown to One, Brown has five national event wins, leads the point standings 1,283 to 1,084 over Tony Schumacher, last year's champion and has clinched a spot in the Countdown to One.

Those numbers were good enough for Ashley to rearrange his schedule to be in attendance at Infineon Raceway and watch his driver become just the seventh in history to sweep the Western Swing. Seven months ago, Antron Brown told his new car owner, Mike Ashley, he could win eight races and

contend for a championship. Ashley responded by telling Brown to do get the job done – one round at a time.

With just three races remaining until the Countdown to One, Brown has five national event wins, leads the point standings 1,283 to 1,084 over Tony Schumacher, last year's champion and has clinched a spot in the Countdown to One.

Those numbers were good enough for Ashley to rearrange his schedule to be in attendance at Infineon Raceway and watch his driver become just the seventh in history to sweep the Western Swing.

“This just doesn’t seem real,” Brown admitted. “Just from all the turmoil we experienced with the team changing ownership and with Mike Ashley coming in, he’s been an excellent team owner.

“You go through ups and down and lose parts of the team you are comfortable with and then you don’t know who they are going to be replaced with, but when a guy like Mike Ashley tells you it is going to be okay you follow his lead.”

Ashley’s lead took Brown into a pair of seasoned Funny Car tuners, Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald, both of which he’d worked with at Don Schumacher Racing while racing his bike.

He remained in the shadows of a media-hyped Tony Schumacher and Larry Dixon rivalry just waiting for his opportunity to strike.

“We kept our heads down and remained focused,” Brown said. “We kept digging and our goal was to come out and be just as competitive as we were last season.”

THIS AIN'T NO SQUARE DANCE – It's call the Western Swing – a three race stretch which starts in Denver, goes northwest to Seattle and then finishes up in Sonoma, California. It is a meal of turf, surf and wine to be savored by Antron Brown, driver of the Matco Tools dragster owned by Mike Ashley. Brown completed the sweep of the three events with an exciting win over Cory McClanathan in the FRAM Autolite Nationals at Infineon Raceway.

Brown was quickest off the line, .067 to .088, and fastest down the track, 3.990 to 4.002, against a determined Cory McClanathan, who was gunning to win for his sponsor, FRAM.

Brown's march to victory including a first round win over Troy Buff, a second round win over Joe Hartley and a semi-final win over the number one qualifier, J.R. Todd.

“I am thinking a lot of sweeping,” Brown said with a laugh, after having avoided all talk of the Western Swing since Denver. “We are just going to keep on going to see where we can go and right now it is as high as the sky.”

“The Western Swing is important. I'm still waiting for the bonus money NHRA is going to give up for doing it. It's just great being a part of history. I don't care what race it is, any racer will tell they'd love to win any three races in a row. The thing is we just went into every race and I blocked it out of my mind. Everybody wanted to hype it up and I went to every race like it was any other race. I just tried to win every round we were in.”

THE WESTERN SWINGERS – In the past 19 years only seven drivers have won what is known as  “The Western Swing”. Joe Amato, driving a dragster, was the first to sweep the Denver, Seattle, Sonoma trio of races, doing it in 1991. John Force did the deed in '94 in his Funny Car, followed by Cory McClanathat in a dragster in '97, Larry Dixon in a dragster in '03, Greg Anderson in Pro Stock in '04, Tony Schumacher in his Army dragster in '08 and now Antron Brown, in his dragster.

Force and Anderson are the only drivers outside of the dragster ranks to turn the trick.

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