Rick Brown was only 16 when he started drag racing in 1968. He rolled to the starting line in a six-cylinder powered 1957 Chevrolet that stopped the timers at 19.20 seconds. 

Fast forward some 55 years later, and Brown races a 2000 Chevrolet S10 truck powered by a 318 cubic inch engine that produces some 930 horsepower while racing in a class some might believe requires a Ph.D. to understand. 

Brown is having the time of his life racing the NHRA's Competition Eliminator and running at the front of the pack in the Rooftec Competition Eliminator Bonus Fund. 

"I can't explain how excited I am to be there," said Brown, who turns 71 years old next week when the NHRA's Div. 4 schedule visits the Texas Motorplex. 

Birthdays are nice, Brown says, but nothing like having a birthday when you're in the point lead of a series that pays $100,000 to the winner, with the opportunity to win another $30,000 if he can win the Rooftec NHRA Competition Eliminator Cash Clash over the Labor Day weekend in Indianapolis. But first, next weekend's double divisional event at the Texas Motorplex, is where there will be a big birthday party.

"The whole family's going to be there," Brown said. 

Brown has one win this season, scoring the victory at the final NHRA event at Houston Raceway Park. That win over Craig Bourgeois and Monty Bogan Jr.'s early exit in Noble, Oklahoma, vaulted him into the points lead.

The Texas Motorplex event is expected to attract over 32 entries for the class that has struggled to field cars in other divisions. Because of the lucrative Rooftec Competition Eliminator bonus, all Division 4 events have fielded 32-car fields. 

"I'm so glad to be leading, and I know that there's 30 other cars that could be in the lead by the end of Dallas, so it's one of those things you just got to go do your best, and that's what we'll hope to do down there," Brown said. "If I have to burn something up to stay ahead, I'm going to have to burn something up. And then I've got two-and-a-half months to get in order to be ready for Indy."

Brown understands with massive fields compared to other venues, even the task of winning a second event in the same season can be a monumental challenge. 

"At Oklahoma, I had my chance. I held the car. You have to make up your mind. Do you want to have more index for the rest of the year, or do you want to run a race and take the lead in the points even more?" Brown explained. "I made the choice."

If a driver dips below their index by .51 or more, their personal index can be adjusted for the event. Go .61 or more under, and the index could take a personal/permanent hit. If all cars in a class exceed -.71, the whole class takes an index hit.

"I've always tried to conserve my index," Brown said. "You can burn the index at the first race of the year, and you're done [for the season] unless you really can come up with something exciting and development in between. We have some time between Dallas and Indy to do some things that I have never done that should develop some more power. We're just hoping that we can make it through Dallas without using any up."

Brown runs in the B/Pro Stock Truck division, and while he went into the semis at the Noble event with an 8.83 elapsed time. He will go into Texas Motorplex with an 8.82. With the weather expected to be in the low 80-degree range with some humidity, he might be sweating in his truck but not with the index. 

"I could have let some of the power go and won that race at Oklahoma, or tried to win, let's put it that way," Brown said. "You always have that chance of the other stuff happening, like red lights and so on. But I had the power enough to do that race and be .67. And I just couldn't do it. It's just too early. I hope that we can do some at Dallas now that we save some."

Last season Brown finished outside of the Rooftec Competition Eliminator Bonus Top 10 and has no regrets. He finished 12th because of missing two races last season, once because of back surgery and the second because then team owner Don Rettich's son passed away.

Essentially Rettich stepped away in 2023 and handed the truck over to Brown, who now carries sponsorship from John Stock, owner of multiple Wendy's franchises. Rettich's name remains on the truck, as does a tribute to his hometown of East Palestine, Ohio, the site of the February 13, 2023, Norfolk Southern train derailment, which made an ecological mess of the eastern Ohio border town.

It doesn't take much time with Brown to realize he's a sentimental person who never forgot where he came from in life. 

"I've always wanted to be part of an organization, and that being NHRA, any kind of a fund or a championship of any kind, you always want to do your best at what you can do at these events," Brown said. "To be part of this Rooftec Comp Bonus Fund is the biggest thing that I've ever been a part of in my lifetime, other than going for the division championship, which I won twice, or winning national events. 

"The only thing I haven't been able to do is to win the national championship, which would be a dream of most people's lives. I've been in the Top 10 many times in almost every car I've driven since 1989. And I really love doing this. I just can't explain."