The evolution of Antron Brown has been quite impressive.

The NHRA Top Fuel World champion in 2012, 2015 and 2016 has become a standout team owner. Two races into the Countdown to the Championship, he’s put himself in great position to win his fourth title by moving into the points lead with a pair of victories.

Brown’s latest win came Sunday when he defeated second-time finalist Doug Foley in the 16th annual NHRA Carolina Nationals near Charlotte, N.C. Brown clocked a 3.848-second elapsed time at 319.90 mph to edge Foley’s respectable 3.862, 316.08.

Brown, the owner of AB Motorsports, now has five wins this season in his Matco Tools/Toyota dragster. It gives him 63 Top Fuel Wallys to go with the 16 he captured in Pro Stock Motorcycle. On Sunday, he defeated Steve Torrence, Billy Torrence, Doug Kalitta, and Foley.

“I tell you, when I first came in, and we wanted to start off with a great qualifying session, that's the main thing to any race, is to get off to a great qualifying start. We crashed and burned on that on Friday,” he said. “We made a run to make sure that we get in the show because we know that Friday night was going to be a tough session to replicate on the day when it's going to be in the middle of the day with the hot. After that (3.75), we felt that hopefully I was going to be good enough to stay in the top half, and it wasn't. We ended up 10th.”

With the triumph, Brown broke a tie for second place with Larry Dixon Jr. for all-time Top Fuel victories. Tony Schumacher is atop the heap with 86.

“On Saturday, when it got hot, we had nothing to lose, so we wanted to see what the track was going to hold. We just stayed aggressive, and we just made it down a track further and further each run, and said, ‘OK, on race day, we got to slow it down even more.’ And then it lined us up against Steve Torrence, which was a great first-round matchup because if you want to win a championship, you have to go through that Capco team. That's why they're four-time world champs. And when we went up there, we had nothing to lose, and we just go, ‘Alright, well, we want to run like an 80 flat.’ And we spun on the big end, and we slowed, and we went, like, an 83 to his 82. He outran us by 100th, but we had a little bit off the tree where we actually were able to pop that win there.”

Brown took a moment to reflect on his place in Top Fuel history.

“It's been a true dream to me. Actually, this is going to be my 17th season in Top Fuel, so, it's been a heck of a ride,” he said. “I've been on a great, great team. I tell you what, I never thought that I would be here, winning the races that we won and thinking about how many races we won overall. 

“But I tell people this all the time: One day when I retire, I'll sit there in a little rocking chair, and I'll look at my trophy room, count them up by one and see if I can remember memories from each one. Each one of those Wallys have a story to them. … It's like you're living that dream. You never knew the dream could be this big.”

This was Brown’s seventh career win at zMAX Dragway between the 4-Wide and two-wide NHRA national events at the facility.

“That was a total team effort, us just never quitting, never surrendering, never giving up. And Lord knows we were learning our trials to qualify. So, when we had that first round, it gave us the confidence for the rest of day because we know the track was going to get the hottest it's been all weekend,” Brown said. “And then we went up there in that second round. We went up there and we raced, oh, man, Billy [Torrence], so we had double trouble. We had both Capco cars. And Billy, I love Billy Torrence. I call him Pops. We have a good time when we race against each other. He literally told me before we raced, he goes, ‘AB.’ I said, ‘Alright, Pops. Let's have a good one.’ He goes, ‘AB, I ain't playing with you. I'm going to give you a good old-fashioned A-S-S whooping.’

“And I looked at Billy, gave that little Texas look, I said, ‘Pop didn't play.’ He turned that top bulb about and cut a light on me, too. And it was a really close race to the end. And we stuck that one out, and then we went up into the semis.”

After defeating the Capco team in consecutive rounds, Brown squared off against Kalitta.

“We got Doug Kalitta, the previous champion from last year, and [crew chief] Alan Johnson. … They win championships. Doug's an incredible driver, and Alan's incredible. He's the winningest crew chief in Top Fuel,” Brown said. “So that speaks for itself right there. And we were able to replicate our run from before, where me and Doug, we ran identical ETs to get down that tricky track. And we snuck him out, and we beat him to the finish line. It was anybody's race, and we got on the other side of that. 

“And they gave us lane choice for the final because Clay [Millican], he had a phenomenal run the round before where he ran a 79, but that round there, he smoked the tires against Doug Foley. And Doug Foley was a monster where the car's always been good all year. They just got it all lined up for him this weekend, where they're showing their true potential, and that's that they can win races. A car that can win any race out there, he's one of them. And Lance Larsen over there [for Foley] helping out with Doug Kuch, all those guys are doing a great job. And we saw him in the final, and we already knew that that final was going to be just as tough as the round before, and Doug showed it. I think he poked it in there a little bit, and he ran, like, if you took the numbers away from it, he ran the same numbers that we ran down the racetrack because of all the increments.

“So, it was just a tough, tough, hard-fought day. And our team, we just beat all that resistance with persistence all day long, and we just never quit.”

Brown’s seven Top Fuel wins in Charlotte put him atop zMAX Dragway’s all-time list, one ahead of Steve Torrence.

“Well, that's one thing that experience gives you, is when you go on these rounds, there's all kinds of storylines that you think about. There are all different types of storylines that you think about winning championships,” Brown said. “There are all different types of storylines of who you race and where they've been. And what I found out to help me the most when I get in these rounds now is that I get up there, and I said I got to be the best that I can be, and our team needs to go out there and run the racetrack.

“If you go out there and you give your all-effort and if you lose, you go home and say, ‘This is what I did. I gave all I had, and I got beat.’  So, I go up there with the experiences teaching me not to get nervous. I keep my head down, and I do what I can do. And that's what our crew chiefs do. They do what we're capable of doing on the racetrack at that given moment. And when you race somebody like Doug Foley, you don't falter and say, ‘Well, I can't mess up, I got to do this, I got to do this, I do this.’ That's when you set yourself up for failure.”

With four races remaining in the season Brown is leading the season points standings – 53 points in front of Justin Ashley and 62 and 67 points, respectively, better than Shawn Langdon and reigning world champ Doug Kalitta.

“We go out there and run what we can run and give it all we got, and it fell our way,” Brown said. “And that's the way we take it, man. You know how people say, ‘Oh, we just raced the racetrack, we raced like ourselves' – you know who you're racing, and you just got to go out there and wait. Our class is right now, No. 1 qualifier was a [3.69]. Number 16 qualifier was a 79 or 78. So ain't nobody [easy] in this class. So, you got to go up there, and you got to leave on time, you got to keep it in the groove, and the car's got to go down the track if you have a chance. And that's what we did.”

Brown will try and make it three wins in a row at the next race – the Midwest Nationals next weekend (Sept. 27-29) just east of St. Louis in Madison, Ill. He rolls into the race as the points leader for the first time since 2017.

“I'm looking at it right now, we still have four races left. Drag races and math. There are 16 rounds left on a table to win. So, our goal is to go out there and win as many of those rounds as possible,” Brown said. “We won the first eight, so we got a third of them. So, the goal is right now, in normal fashion, if you win 16 of these things every past champion – Steve Torrence ran the table, ran all six races, he won all 24 rounds, which was incredible – and we're on pace. But I think, guys, what we got to focus on is to win every round that's available to us. And then when the job's done, when they actually say, ‘Hey, you are the champ,’ that's when the job's done, and that's when we can actually start thinking about it.

“We've gone off to a great start, but there's 16 rounds of racing that we're looking forward to.”