Top Fuel champion Antron Brown’s son Anson represents fourth generation In drag racing family.
How many 17-year-olds could identify the chemical compound CH3NO2?
Or know that it’s the product of a reaction between nitric acid and propane, much less be trusted to measure the proper ratio of it and pour it into the fuel tank of an 11,000-horsepower race car that will jet the length of more than three NFL fields in less than four seconds and make more horsepower than the first four or five rows of the Daytona 500?
It’s nitromethane, the lifeblood that pumps through an NHRA Top Fuel engine at 11.2 gallons per second, same as a fully loaded 747 but producing 25 percent more energy. And it’s the subject of “Working On A Top Fuel Dragster 101” for high-school senior-to-be Anson Brown.
Starting this weekend at the NHRA’s New England Nationals at Epping, N.H., the already-automotive-savvy Brown is joining his father Antron Brown’s AB Motorsports Matco Tools/Toyota Dragster team as a crew member during his summer break.
Three-time Top Fuel champion Antron Brown plans to put his son—the middle of he and wife Billie Jo’s three children—in the seat of a ground-pounding, insanely accelerating dragster.
NHRA champion Antron Brown is passing the NHRA bug down to son Anson.
NHRA/National Dragster
“That is one of my future goals. I love it, and I think I would be great at it,” Anson Brown, who at 17 is about to age out of the Jr. Dragster program he has raced in since he was 8 years old, said. “I love racing, and I think it’d be so cool to drive a Top Fuel dragster.”
However, he said, “Right now I’m just taking things slow. So it’s just a future goal. But, I mean, honestly, I can’t wait. And I’m going to work as long as I have to work to get to that goal.”
First, his father wants to see that trademark Brown work ethic, which today spans four generations, in action in the most basic of ways.
“Right now, I’m just starting out, so I’m just like an extra set of hands,” Anson Brown said. “Wherever anyone needs me, I’m there to help. If they need me to wipe down the car, I’ll wipe it down. If they need me to clean the pistons, I’ll clean the pistons.
“Right now, I’m learning how to mix fuel. So that’s really fun and very interesting,” he said, “because it’s like science class in high school, but at the track.”
Cousin Dylan Robinson, left, helps Anson Brown mix fuel for Antron Brown’s NHRA Top Fuel dragster.
Courtesy AB Motorsports
The younger Brown said, “When I was eight years old, I didn’t do that much on the car. But when I started getting older, I started learning more about the car and how it operates – because my dad always says that there’s always two sides of driving. You can drive, but you also should know, and need to know, mechanical knowledge. He started teaching me at a young age. Any questions I asked he’d always answer. So I’d say racing Juniors definitely advanced my knowledge in racing a lot, and that’s how I know most of the stuff about ‘big racing,’ what he does, today.”
It helped that the Midwest Jr. Super Series champion earned his Super Comp license last year at Frank Hawley’s Drag Racing School. That’s when Antron Brown probably was prouder than he was when he achieved three Top Fuel series crowns. Dad said, “I remember seeing Anson’s face and his excitement when he came back from making his first full quarter-mile pass over 150 miles per hour and thinking, ‘Wow, he’s all grown up.’”
Hawley, NHRA’s 1982 and 1983 Funny Car champion, operates the instructional academy to help aspiring racers (and even those wishing a refresher course) learn in a safe and controlled environment.
And Hawley said, after watching Anson Brown progress, that he “clearly has learned a lot from watching and listening to his dad. Antron is a perfect example of how you can actually achieve your dreams in our sport. He has worked his way up to a champion driver and now an NHRA Top Fuel team owner. He’s one of the best drivers in our sport, and he does an incredible job for his sponsors. He is truly a perfect role model for Anson.”
Antron Brown is a three-time Top Fuel champ.
NHRA/National Dragster
Just like Antron Brown, who constantly is finding ways to educate himself, Anson Brown said he wants to continue his schooling, too—following an ambitious blueprint—although he said he can’t wait to join the Camping World Drag Racing Series tour with his dad after high-school graduation.
“I’m going in my senior year, and I’ll be graduated. So I can’t wait to go on the road after high school,” Anson Brown said. “I’m going to be involved in helping out with something on my dad’s team. But I also have plans on going to college, too. I want to get my MBA.”
Antron Brown has strong relationships with automotive technical schools, and his son said he wants to attend one, as well, one day.
“Tech schools, I love them, and I would love to go to one after going to college. But I also have another aspiration. I want to own my own business,” he said. “So I think going to get my Masters in business administration would really teach me how to operate a business and even help with racing, because it teaches you how to operate a business. And racing is a business, so it helps you operate a team if you want one.”
His dad received one-on-one tutoring from his former team owner Don Schumacher, who already had shown him for 13 years what a winning culture looked like. And Antron Brown has said he absorbed all the lessons he could by listening to and watching Troy Vincent, his first team boss, as well as Joe Amato, Darrell Gwynn, and Tony Schumacher, among others. So Anson is plotting his own path.
About a dozen years ago, Antron Brown won the Top Fuel trophy at the Finals at Pomona, Calif. In the sports section of a national newspaper the next morning, a blurb read that “Anson Brown” had won the race.
Anson Brown was barely in kindergarten when that misprint occurred. One day he might be in the winners circle at an NHRA event—and in the pages of the newspaper or on automotive website. But first things first.
Keyword: NHRA Experience Is 'Like Science Class In High School, But at the Track’