Antron Brown has learned assistant tuner Mark Oswald’s sign language. A thumbs-up means the Matco Tools dragster will go from Point A to Point B. An opening and clenching fist means exactly the kind of run the sophomore Top Fuel dragster driver reeled off in Saturday’s lone qualifying session at the NHRA Kragen O'Reilly Winternationals.

Brown recorded the quickest run in the history of thousand-foot racing with a 3.708 elapsed time, a run the NHRA has chosen not to validate.

Obviously the hand signal couldn’t have predicted what could have been a world record, so what does it mean? Antron Brown has learned assistant tuner Mark Oswald’s sign language. A thumbs-up means the Matco Tools dragster will go from Point A to Point B. An opening and clenching fist means exactly the kind of run the sophomore Top Fuel dragster driver reeled off in Saturday’s lone qualifying session at the NHRA Kragen O'Reilly Winternationals.

Brown recorded the quickest run in the history of thousand-foot racing with a 3.708 elapsed time, a run the NHRA has chosen not to validate.

Obviously the hand signal couldn’t have predicted what could have been a world record, so what does it mean?

“Squeeze your butt cheeks because you’re about to go for a ride,” Brown admitted. “He did that to me in testing at Phoenix before we ran the quickest run and I asked him [over the radio], ‘What does that [signal] mean?

“I got to the finish line and he looked at me and said, ‘Now you do.”

This time was different. Brown says he won’t use swear words but even that run caused him to use creative terminology.

“Good jugamafuga, that’s what I said,” Brown said.

Saturday’s historic run marked the second consecutive NHRA Winternationals No. 1 qualifying effort for Brown since debuting at this event last year.

He was also the quickest Top Fuel dragster at the team’s only test session two weeks ago in Phoenix.

That’s not a bad feat considering two weeks ago was the first time dyed-in-the-wool Funny Car tuners Brian Corradi and Oswald took a shot at tuning a Top Fuel dragster. When Mike Ashley purchased the team in January, he brought in members of his former Funny Car team and morphed them with the existing team to create the current crew.

“We only had four days of testing for the previous team and the new team to gel,” Brown admitted. “Matco Tools, our sponsor, wants to win championships … they aren’t out here just to be out here, so I, we, had a lot of pressure from the start. I just gain confidence with every run we make. If those guys can tune a Funny Car, they can tune a dragster. They just loved Funny Car because they could turn the screws at it.”