LAS VEGAS -- Antron Brown raced his Don Schumacher-owned Matco Tools dragster to the provisional No. 7 qualifying position Friday evening at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The 23-time NHRA winner used an elapsed time of 3.860-seconds to clock the seventh quickest run on the opening day of qualifying at the ninth annual Las Vegas NHRA Nationals.

Brown enters the penultimate event on the 2009 NHRA schedule ranked fourth in the standings trailing Tony Schumacher by 81 points or about four rounds of racing. On his first qualifying attempt of the weekend, Brown's bright blue Matco Tools dragster lost traction mid-track and slowed to a lap of 4.277 seconds at 259.21 mph. Friday evening under the lights at The Strip at LVMS, Brown powered his Brian Corradi/Mark Oswald-tuned Matco Tools rail to a performance of 3.860 at 314.09 to finish seventh in the order. Brown's teammates, Tony Schumacher and Cory McClenathan, finished third and sixth, respectively, on Friday.

"It's been a crazy week for this Matco Tools team and it was great to get back to racing today here at Las Vegas," Brown said. "We had a couple gremlins today, but it's good to get them out of the way. We broke a fuel line on the night run and that really slowed us down. It's all good though, we're in the show and ready to go some rounds on Sunday."

Professional nitro qualifying is scheduled for 12:30 and 3:30 p.m. (PT) on Saturday afternoon at The Strip at LVMS. Top Fuel will run first followed by Funny Car. Brown qualified second last October at the fall Las Vegas race at 3.812-seconds.

Don Schumacher Racing, headquartered in Brownsburg, Ind., consists of seven professional NHRA teams: The U.S. Army Top Fuel dragster driven by six-time world champion Tony Schumacher; the FRAM Tough Guard dragster of Cory McClenathan, and the Matco Tools dragster of Antron Brown. The Funny Car teams are the NAPA AUTO PARTS Dodge driven by Ron Capps, the Valvoline/Mail Terminal Services Dodge piloted by Jack Beckman, and the shelor.com Dodge driven by NHRA rookie Matt Hagan. Matt Smith rides the Nitro Fish Ultimate Gear Suzuki Pro Stock Motorcycle for DSR. Since 1998, Don Schumacher Racing teams have won 135 national events in 257 final rounds, and seven world championships.

Q1 4.277 ET, 259.21 MPH No. 12
Q2 3.860 ET, 314.09 MPH No. 7