As dominant as Doug Kalitta has been in NHRA’s Top Fuel class this season, facing him and defeating him in elimination rounds has been a daunting task.

Veteran Antron Brown, a Top Fuel world champ in 2012 and 2015-16, was up for the challenge Sunday.

Brown, in his Mac Tools dragster, clocked a 3.736-second elapsed time at 330.55 mph to edge Kalitta’s 3.747-second elapsed time at 334.65 mph in the final round to win the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio.

“They're juggernauts right now. Not just Doug, but the whole Kalitta team. (Shawn) Langdon's been in numerous finals this year too, taking people down,” Brown said. “So, when you look at the whole Kalitta camp, they're not coming out here to be out here. They're coming out here to win, and they got all the necessary pieces. Anytime you race them, you got to get through them to win the race. If you don't see Doug, you're going to see Shawn. You don't see Shawn, you see Doug, and vice-versa. One car feeds off the other. Once one car drops low ET, the other one's right behind him or right in front of him.     

“So, for us, we were trying to be No. 1 qualifier here. We hiccupped a little bit on Q4. We had a mishap, but we recovered from it. We ran a really good first-round E.T. out in E1, and we dropped a hole before half-track. Our car was on a 69 run first round eliminations today, so we knew where we were at. We know we could run with them. To pull off a win, and we pulled off two already this year, so it gives our team a lot more confidence and it gives us some drive, especially going to Seattle.”   

This was his 76th career NHRA national event win – 60 in Top Fuel and 16 in Pro Stock Motorcycle. Brown transitioned from Pro Stock Motorcycle to Top Fuel to start the 2008 season.     

“It's one of the best ones right now. Your best one's your next one, right? We're going to celebrate like rock stars tonight because this class is unbelievably tough,” Brown said. “The thing about it is not just trying to win a race. Some races you're just hoping to qualify. You could be on the outside looking in really, really quick. To make the show and do what we did, we definitely started hitting the charge when we won Chicago.

“Then, we had a couple deals. We just (drew some) tough matches first round at the next couple of races. Then, we lit it up again when we went to Richmond (Va.). Then, coming here, we really felt that we had a package that we can compete and run with anybody.

“Just if it gets cool, can we pick it up? We proved that in qualifying. Being here in Ohio, where my crew chief grew up around the outside of Cleveland, Brian Corradi, and Mark Oswald grew up right down in Cincinnati, Ohio. Levi Brubaker on our team, who does our cylinder heads, puts our rods and pistons together, he grew up right here in Ohio, too. Then, our new social gal, she grew up right here, right here by Sandusky.”

On Sunday, Brown mowed through Dan Mercier, Clay Millican, Justin Ashley and Kalitta.

This was Brown’s second career win in Norwalk with his first coming in 2014.

“So, to see how many people come from this state and to come here to Summit Raceway Park here, the Bader family racetrack. They live, eat, and breathe drag racing,” Brown said. “You could tell by the way the fans showed out, we bowed to the weather, stands were still full and packed, put on a great show. The racing that we saw from the first round of Top Fuel, I mean, I think it was some of the best racing I've seen the last 10 years of any class. I mean, you don't know who's going to win, or how they're going to win, or what they're going to do. To be a part of that and go rounds and to come out the victor, I mean, my hat's off to my team. Truly, teamwork makes the dream work, and they did that today. It's like a dream come true and just be a part of it here in Matco's headquarters. It gets no better than that.

“To do it here at the hometown for Matco Tools, all our distributors who support this team for over 16 years since I've been driving. But they have literally been in this sport for over 30 years, in motorsports. So, truly special to do it here. Man, I'm not speechless, but I'm in awe of how we got this done.”  

Brown arrived in Norwalk fifth in the season points standings. He qualified No. 3 with a 3.717-elapsed time at 333.33 mph. Then he won for the second time this season – the other coming in Chicago.

"I'm going to be honest with you, yes, it has gotten way easier being a third year in,” Brown said. “Starting AB Motorsports is that I've been very blessed with all the right people. You know what I mean? I have a really good administration staff. We got all the right people running all our guys. We have Brian Corradi making all the calls on all the performance with Mark Oswald at the helm, where they can focus. Like Brian tells Brad, ‘Hey, I need this and this and that.’ Then, Brad (Mason) makes it happen. Chris Watson coming onboard, really helping to orchestrate the guys on the road where it took a little weight off Brad's shoulders and Brian and Mark's shoulders where they could focus to do what they do. …

“It takes everybody, everybody. You know what I mean? Everybody's been working really, really hard. I'm just truly blessed to have the people around me to make this happen.”

With the next race not until July 19-21 at the Northwest Nationals in Seattle, Brown is well aware of what a win meant Sunday.  

“So, for us, is that we just want to build that momentum, and we want to get up there in the top four in points, so we should be really close to that. Our main focus would be in that top three when it comes after Indy for the Countdown for the Championship (the final six races of the season), and to hit our stride and peak at the right time. You can win a lot of races now, but we all know that doesn't mean as much until you get to Countdown. I feel that we can compete with any race car out there and any race team. I'm building confidence in myself where I thought I left on Justin (Ashley) today, but he still got me, cut a .049 light and (he) cut a .039. So, we're just going to keep working diligently in that department like Brian, and Mark, and Brad, and all the Matco boys going to work hard on making this car better and better. We went down to track every lap this weekend. We almost went down to track every lap in Richmond in the heat. When you start able to put those runs together, that's when you can compete at a high level, pull the wins off. I like where we're at.”   

And Brown knows the West Coast races – Seattle and Sonoma, Calif. (July 26-28) – are when a driver and his team can separate themselves from the competition.

“Usually we go into the Western Swing, you find out what the teams are made of. You know what I mean? Richmond was a two-tap chest. It was 98 degrees, feels like 104. Humidity everywhere. You sat in the car, you were sweating,” Brown said. “You saw people passing out. So now we're going to go out to Seattle for the first time. We're going to have a night-time show on Friday night. So that's going to be something special. Sonoma's always a good racetrack.

“But it's wear and tear on the crew guys on the driving. Their workload does not change. You go from one to the other and you have to travel a thousand miles in between each other or something like that. So, it's grueling on them. You got to drive literally over 30 hours to get out there and come back home. We're looking forward to it. We usually always do good. We just got to go out there humble and hungry. That's what I tell our guys. Humble and hungry. I like our chances going out there. Just want to build off what we've been building right now.”

One thing Brown knows is no one at AB Motorsports is going to back down from any challenge.

“The thing about our team is that this class has always been very intense, and I don't know what it is. Whoever we race, they run their best E.T. and cut their best light against our team. We don't get the guy that cuts like a .200 light. We never get that. We get a guy that cuts a .020 light against us that never cut the 20s. But that's the nature of our sport where they bring their A-plus-level game.

“For me, I look at it and look at Brian, Brian goes, ‘When can we catch a break?’ You know what, we don't ever win by catching breaks. You got to win by being good and being great. When you do that, you get the luck on your side. You get those kinds of rounds. For us, we're used to doing the work and we just got to keep our head down and give it all we got. If you keep doing that, it starts falling your way. That's what happened” Sunday.