Antron Brown admits he's always loved Pro Modified. There was always something about the volatile doorslammers that piqued his interest. So when Radial Tire Racing superstar Manny Buginga offered to let Brown, a three-time NHRA Top Fuel champion, drive one of his cars, the champion quickly accepted.

Brown made his doorslammer driving debut in one of Buginga's race cars, the Pro 275; not a bona fide Pro Modified car, but pretty darn close.

"I always was a big fan of Pro Mods," Brown confirmed. "These Pro 275 cars, you might as well call them Pro Mods. That's what they are. They don't even have the long wheelbases of Pro Mod cars, their shorter wheelbased Pro Mod. They're going almost as fast.

"I saw a Pro Mod car go 3.59, but these cats are going high 3.60s. They're a tenth off of that. So you tell me.

"I remember [Tim] Lynch back in the day when they used to race those Mustangs. Them things used to be buck wild. You know what I mean?

After spending the first day learning the orneriness behind the wheel of Buginga's 2003 Fred (we'll address this later in the article), and spent the day going sharp right or sharp left. Friday, after some four-link adjustments, Brown went straight and true to a 3.769 at 201.04 to take the provisional No. 1 qualifying session.

"The first lap, we spun the tires up to 60-foot," Brown recalled. "The next lap, it came in at lockup and started driving hard to the right a little bit.

"So I shut it down. I almost got to the 330 on that run. It's pretty awesome the way those things work. Those tracks are super glued down. I have never walked on a track that you cannot walk on. You can't walk on the race track; it's so glued.

"The coolest part was when I let go of the transbrake button, and it took off so smooth. It's the stablest thing that I've ever been in. The cars are super stable. I feel like they're rocked down on those radials. But then, once it gets the magic happening, brother, you start getting ghosts quickly.

Seeing ghosts? Ghoulish ghosts? Brown's ghosts are those moments that take your breath away. The last time one of those moments happened was when he first experienced one-to-one in his Matco Tools dragster.

"The coolest part is for me racing a Top Fuel car is kind of like I'm cheating," Brown explained. "These cars accelerate, and they accelerate hard. But [this car] it's not like a Top Fuel car. With you being closed in with a doorslammer car, and the way it does everything it does, it's incredible what they do and how they do it. It really opened my eyes. Trust me. It wasn't a pucker factor; it was more of I was impressed, very impressed.

"It didn't scare me. It doesn't scare me at all. It's just how impressive the mechanics are and how they do what they do. It's just a totally different discipline on what it does."

Brown does admit there are some similarities between the tool he uses on his day job, to the one he's utilizing in this weekend escape.

"It does a lot of stuff like a fuel car does," Brown explained. "When it goes out there, once it shifts into second and the lockup came in, it's just like us at the 230-foot mark, where we get the first engagement of our clutch where the bearing starts moving away, and the car starts getting ghost. This has a lot of similarities to what we do."

Now, let's address the car he's driving. Brown is driving a "pony car" rebadged as "Fred."

"It's called Fred," Brown explained. "He doesn't really have cars. He doesn't name the brand or make because he's got all kinds of different vehicles. He gives them names. So everybody knows his car is Fred.

"He strips all the emblems unless people give him money to do it. He doesn't have factory support, so he calls his cars names. And everybody in the whole industry knows the car I'm driving as Fred. Like he's got stickers that say, 'Hello, my name is Fred."

"When you go to classify this car, you call it Fred. Everybody in this whole world knows this is Fred."

So... is this a one-time engagement, or does Brown see more of these outings in his future?

"I'm too fresh in it right now," Brown said. "I'll tell you how everything worked out at the end of the week. It's definitely one of those deals that sucks you in when you want to do it. No doubt. I'm not going to lie to you. Honestly, you want to do it. You want to race it more."

RELATED STORY: ANTRON BROWN HAS ALWAYS BEEN A NATURAL FOR TOP FUEL 

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