Even though many onlookers called Brown’s winless start to the season a slump, the three-time Top Fuel titlist really hasn’t viewed it that way at all.

“We wanted to make the magic happen earlier; we didn’t have that bad of a start to our year, honestly,” Brown recalled. “After six races, we were second in points, so we knew the performance and the speed was there. We just hit a slump, like five races in a row, where we were trying to get our car better and ended up losing in the first round or not collecting the points we should have gotten on race weekends.

“Things just happen, and we recognize that sometimes in racing, you’ll have that,” continued Brown. “But we feel now that we’re back in the window that we need to be in and there’s a lot of optimism around this crew right now. We’re coming for the rest of these guys in the next few weeks.”

Brown finally broke his 24-race winless drought and collected his first Wally trophy of the season during the CatSpot NHRA Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways near Seattle, Wash., on Aug. 5.

The win was made even more special by the fact that it both broke the longest winless stretch in Brown’s career and was his 50th in the NHRA Top Fuel class, making him just the fourth driver in NHRA history to reach the milestone.

“For me, a boy out of Chesterfield, New Jersey and someone who grew up at the sportsman level of this sport … not the professional level, I was just happy to race a Pro Stock bike, man,” said Brown. “I won my first race on the bike and in the winner’s circle I was like, ‘hey, this is a Wally!’ To go from that class to Top Fuel and to get 50 wins in the dragster … I feel like I’m dreaming.

“I was happy and felt blessed enough just to step on the pedal of a Top Fuel car, but to actually get to do what I do and be where I’m at in my career … I’m just so fortunate and so grateful to all the guys at Don Schumacher Racing who believed in me from the start and took this chance on me. We’re all champions together and this team is incredible. I owe everything to them.”

Brown has now been to the final round in three of the last five races, catapulting him back up from the bottom end of the top 10 to sixth in points, with his Countdown berth officially clinched on points.

“My guys … I love it. I tell people all the time that this year, we’re like that Drake song, ‘we started from the bottom and now we’re here,’” joked Brown. “Everyone knows that right now because we’re hitting that rhythm, we’re peaking at the right time and we’re going to be a threat.

“I really do believe that we can contend for this championship and prove a lot of doubters wrong at the end of the day. We won in Seattle; we lost in Brainerd by three thou (to Billy Torrence) … we’re there.”

Should Brown and his team accomplish that feat and win his fourth NHRA Top Fuel title, he said it would be the sweetest championship of his career so far.

“This season has made my team as a whole better. A lot of teams might have folded up or team owners made a change, but we’ve gone through the storm and we’re stronger now than we’ve ever been,” said Brown. “Don (Schumacher) knew where we were at and had the confidence in us to stick with it.

“We knew what we were capable of, we knew what we were made of and we know what we have,” Brown added. “A championship this year would be huge. To win it this year, it would make all the struggles … all the blood, sweat and tears we’ve spent worth it. It would be icing on the cake, for sure.”