In a roller coaster of a season that makes Magic Mountain and Cedar Point thrill rides seem like "it’s a small world" at Disneyland, Antron Brown capped the 2009 NHRA tour with a win at the Automobile Club of Southern California NHRA Finals in Pomona. Perhaps it was a bit of poetic justice or maybe just a category-best sixth win for what arguably may have been Top Fuel’s best team of 2009.

After enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday with his family in Louisiana, where the Matco Tools flagship driver also showed off his winning RC boat-racing skills, Brown is focused on spoiling the Tony Schumacher/Larry Dixon Top Fuel title parade in 2010, his third season in Top Fuel.

“We had an awesome year in ’09, but we didn’t get what we wanted, which is the Full Throttle championship,” Brown said. “We’re tired of being the bridesmaid. We would have won the title under the old system, but we slipped up in the Countdown just a little bit. Our DSR Matco Tools team is very motivated to continue the strong performance we showed this season and get to the top of the mountain next year.”

After a strong rookie Top Fuel campaign in 2008 with two wins in five final rounds en route to a fifth-place finish, there was no sophomore slump for the Matco Tools flagship driver. Following a tumultuous off-season, the former track star at Mercer (N.J.) Community College jelled quickly with his new tuning duo of Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald, the 1984 NHRA Funny Car world champion. Top Fuel was new to the former Funny Car tuners, but there was no adjustment period as Corradi and Oswald pushed Brown to the quickest lap of preseason testing.

A season highlight for the Matco Tools Top Fuel team was sweeping the Western Swing, a feat accomplished by few.

The Matco Tools team didn’t let up as Brown earned his first of seven No. 1 qualifying awards at the season-opening Kragen O'Reilly NHRA Winternationals and raced to a runner-up finish at the historic California track. Two weeks later, he won in Phoenix. The Matco Tools team continued to be the team to beat, winning again in Madison before Brown became just the seventh driver in the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series to sweep the grueling Western Swing (events in Denver, Seattle, and Sonoma). The former Pro Stock Motorcycle standout led the Top Fuel field into the Countdown to 1 and despite a few subpar events finished third in the six-race playoffs.

The Matco Team received some stability when drag racing mogul Don Schumacher purchased the assets of the Matco team from Mike Ashley Racing in October 2009. At the final event of the season in Pomona, despite not earning the Top Fuel world championship, Brown dispatched a stellar field en route to a category-best sixth win of 2009. He posted those wins in 10 final-round appearances and had seven poles, 51 round-wins, and 13 top speeds of the meet. Brown also set the 1,000-foot national speed record twice, at 319.22 (Indianapolis) and 319.60 (Richmond).

“We accomplished some amazing things this season,” Brown said. “It’s still sometimes a bit surreal what we did and how quickly we all came together as a team with so many changes. The biggest thing for us is what we were able to learn from some of our mistakes. I think some of our early losses in the Countdown [to 1] will make this Matco team even stronger next season. Remember, this was just Brian's and Mark’s first season in Top Fuel. I don’t see any reason why we won’t be a better race team in 2010.”

Antron Brown and crew chiefs Mark Oswald, left, and Brian Corradi, right, closed their 2009 season in fine fashion with a win at the Auto Club NHRA Finals in Pomona.

Now all tucked in at their new digs at the DSR shop in Brownsburg, Ind., Brown and the Matco Tools team are hard at work on improving on their spectacular 2009 season. With resources previously not available and some of the best tuning minds in the sport working together, Brown expects nothing less than a championship run to begin at the 50th annual Kragen O’Reilly NHRA Winternationals in February.

“Testing isn’t that far off, but we have a lot of work to do before we get to Florida in mid-January,” Brown said. “We have so many resources that we didn’t have in-house here at DSR and so many great crew chiefs to talk with. We already have one new chassis ready to go, and we’ll have a second in-house DSR chassis for testing. This DSR Top Fuel stable is going to be hard to beat next year.”

From fifth in 2008 to a third-place finish in 2009, perhaps the third time will be a charm for Brown in 2010, and the so-called bridesmaid will reach the top of the mountain and become an NHRA world champion.