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Antron Brown's fourth title is closer than ever with Brian Corradi back on board

Antron Brown got the band back together at NHRA preseason testing at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. His next win, and championship chase, is on the horizon.
31 Jan 2020
Jacob Sundstrom, NHRA National Dragster Associate Editor
Feature
Antron Brown

Antron Brown last won in 2018, a lifetime ago for a three-time world champion and a driver that ranks amongst the greatest of all time. 

That figures to change in 2020. Brown teamed back up with Brian Corradi during the offseason and formed AB Motorsports, which will operate out of Don Schumacher Racing through the 2020 season. He showed up to preseason testing at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with the core group that helped him win all those championships and shot him up the all-time wins list. 

His Top Fuel dragster also features a Global Electronic Technology sticker in a prominent placement, slotting in directly behind the Matco Tools logo that's become a standby over the last decade. All of the changes made the offseason, which at the time of writing lasted all of two months, the busiest in Brown's career -- but he hopes that translates into a simpler and more successful Top Fuel campaign. 

"He's not afraid to change or do anything or put new stuff on the car," said Brown. "He knows how to manipulate and make it work -- he won't do the same thing over and over. We had all kinds of different people on our car over the last couple of years, whether it was Mike Green or Mike Neff and it was just never consistent."

Green is now tuning Austin Prock's Top Fuel dragster alongside Joe Barlam while Neff is working with Bob Tasca III's Funny Car. The struggles of Brown's Top Fuel team, which has wins at two of the last three Seattle events and nowhere else, are well documented. The whole Corradi left was never adequately filled -- except by Steve Torrence, who won at an incredible rate. 

"I communicate so well with Brian and Mark (Oswald) and Brad (Mason) and all these guys without even thinking about it," said Brown. "We don't second guess each other and it's really good to be able to go in and just focus on driving the car and taking care of partners and sponsors and actually have fun driving the car. That's the main thing is that doing this is a big load and when you have a lot of people there to help hold that load up."

The new partnership with Don Schumacher Racing, which will allow Brown to form his own team in the future, opens the door to bringing more sponsors on board and more cars. 

"I think at this point I just wanted to go in and have more control of my own destiny and put work in and try to bring new partners to grow the sport. I thought this was the right time to do it."