Drag racer Antron Brown ready for his return to Sonoma

For as much publicity and credit that John Force, the king of drag racing, gets for being an ambassador for the NHRA, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who equals his level of self-marketing and openness more than two-time defending Top Fuel champion Antron Brown.

Brown, a 41-year-old New Jersey native who currently resides in Indianapolis, has a smile that could conceivably stretch from his hometown to his current residence and a personality to back it up.

“All I do is I aim, point and steer, and I’m kind of the quarterback of the team,” Brown said of his role on the Matco Tools Top Fuel team.

That’s a humble brag for someone who drives a 300-plus-mile-per-hour dragster down a quarter-mile track.

He’s coming to Sonoma, one of his favorite dragstrips, this weekend.

A four-time Sonoma Raceway champion, Brown is also riding the high of winning at the MOPAR Mile-High Nationals in Colorado this past weekend, which catapulted him to second in the points standings for the NHRA’s fastest category of dragsters.

He recorded his fourth win of the year and clinched a playoff berth, his 10th postseason appearance in a row.

“Sonoma has always been good to us,” Brown said. “It’s a fast racetrack. You’ve always got to be on your toes, but you have to be able to adapt from where it can be really fast or it can be really hot, to where it can be really slow. Sonoma is a very tricky racetrack.”

Brown’s energy and charisma likely helped him land a spot as a co-host on BBC America’s Top Gear America, a companion to the lauded Top Gear show in Britain.

“It was a blast … Had fun. Had a lot, a lot of fun,” he said of his time on the show.

“I was able to get into cars that, as a kid, that I always read about and dreamed about having,” Brown added. “The coolest part is that I didn’t get to go in there and baby them and just drive them around - I got to put them down to test what they were made to do.”

And Brown insists there was no sugarcoating of opinions about the cars that the trio of hosts - Brown, actor William Fichtner and British auto journalist Tom Ford - got to test.

“We told you our real honest opinion. We didn’t sugarcoat it. We really told you what we thought it was,” Brown said.

The show, which premieres Sunday night, is scheduled to air eight hourlong episodes this year.

The original show produced in Britain is known for putting cars to the test in a variety of situations - sometimes feats that appear impossible. A previous version of Top Gear USA on A&E was canceled in 2016.

Recording the show was a challenge as much as it was a great time for Brown, who was constantly on the road while balancing his TV role with racing.

“I was literally flying from one race, to filming in L.A., California, Mexico - wherever we were filming at,” Brown said. “I was living out of the suitcase for 2½ months.”

The hectic travel didn’t hurt Brown in the standings.

He was down by more than 100 points before winning in Colorado this past weekend.

By reaching second place, he has trimmed his deficit to Top Fuel points leader Steve Torrence to just 54 points as the series heads to the Sonoma dragstrip Brown has loved racing at in the past.

Brown won’t just be focused on racing this weekend. He’s looking forward to a visit to the Russian River Brewing Company in downtown Santa Rosa, an annual tradition he partakes in with his crew, a handful of whom love their IPAs, he says.

Brewery owners Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo usually expect him to visit the taproom when he visits Sonoma County. Natalie is a huge drag-racing fan, Brown said.

“I’ve been down there every year,” Brown said.

If he takes his fifth Sonoma crown this weekend, who knows? Don’t be surprised if a glass of Pliny the Elder sneaks its way into Victory Lane.