If you're going to win a race, it's usually best you make it one you'll win forever. For NHRA Competition Eliminator racer Rick Brown, the final event at Houston Raceway Park will be one he will never forget for two key reasons.

First, there will never be another Competition Eliminator race winner at the track located in Baytown, Texas. Secondly, it will always be a victory where he took momentum by the horns and rode it to the finish line. 

Brown stopped the front-engine dragster of Craig Bourgeois to notch the victory. 

"I've raced here a few times but never gone this far," Brown said. "I felt the momentum this morning and yesterday that we were going to really take this, and the wife was the same way, and the crew."

Momentum, or a bit of spring chickenish; regardless of how one classifies it, it all worked in Brown's favor. 

"It just had that feeling, and the driving that I did was, I got to say, for almost 71 years old, was sort of like an 18-year-old like I used to be, but I've been that way most of my life," Brown admitted. "So glad to get that done, to put some fear in a few people I hope."

Brown entered eliminations as the No. 12 qualifier and reached the finals with victories over Ashton Hudson, Jim Kimbrough, and took a single when Monty Bogan Jr., Belle Rose champion, withdrew from competition during the rain-delay. He took out Rodger Brogdon to reach the final round against Bourgeois,

It's a safe bet to say his competition wasn't afraid of him as much as they were of their index taking a permanent hit. While they were playing the calculator challenge, Brown was busy running his B/Pro Stock Truck Automatic out the back door.  

"The best thing we had to do was the luck of the draw of people indexing down, and I was at zero all the way through," Brown said. "That's the only way to win this thing, to make it even at the end. I was the lucky one to draw at this time. I wasn't so lucky in Belle Rose during the first round -- .060 down."  

The most visible display Brown noticed is the value the Rooftec Competition Eliminator bonus fund has put into winning an NHRA Division 4 event. 

"This is really large, and what has been put up for the RoofTec Bonus Fund," Brown said. "There's nothing like it in the country, we know that, and what he's done for this class is immense, and I'm so glad to be winning the second race of this year. I just hope we can do a little more in the next three to add to our points total, make sure we get to Indy, and then stay in the top to possibly win that $100,000."

Right now, Brown would be content to gain the $10,000 he missed by falling out of last year's top ten. 

"I was in 12th, and one round thought took, I would've been in some money, but I missed this due to my sponsor, Don Reddick's son passed away last year," Brown said. "So, I missed the Houston national event, which was points towards this. And then the other one at Belle Rose, I'd had back surgery before that, and I just couldn't get ready in time for their first race."

But this time, it all worked out in his favor. 

"Darn glad to be here and happy to win," Brown concluded.