Drag Illustrated Issue 113, September 2016 | Page 92
Rising to the Top
makes Antron better.”
The stability offered by a consistent, proven level of performance is comforting, but that doesn’t
mean Corradi will take it easy or rest on his team’s
accomplishments. If the Matco car isn’t qualified going into a race, Corradi says he still gets
the same feelings he experienced when trying to
earn the respect of team owners and fellow crew
chiefs as he was coming up the ranks. “Your gut
is wrenching, and mine still does if my car is not
running right. If there’s something wrong with
that car—it ain’t performing right—I’m sick. I get
a stomachache and I don’t feel right. I’ve been
with it for so long and such a part of it that it’s
eerie. It’s an eerie feeling.”
Once at the track, Corradi takes his place
behind the keyboard in the team’s transporter.
He’ll come up with a baseline tune-up for the
weekend, which he and Oswald will fine-tune
through qualifying. Oswald, an International
Almost two decades of nitro racing
experience has helped Brian Corradi cement
himself as one of the most respected tuners
in the fuel pits. Along with co-crew chief
Mark Oswald and driver Antron Brown,
Corradi has won a pair of NHRA Mello Yello
Series Top Fuel world championships.
Drag Racing Hall of Famer with an NHRA Funny
Car world championship to his name, focuses on
the mechanical duties involved with tuning and
leading a Top Fuel team. Together, Corradi and
Oswald have used their respective talents to lead
Brown and the Matco/U.S. Army team to two
NHRA Mello Yello Series world championships
over the last four years.
“I do all the tuning up. I worry about the numbers. I take care of the database. I put the numbers in. Mark goes out and looks at the parts or
we look at the parts together. He’s the mechanical
side of it. He’s like between me and the car, and
then you’ve got Brad between the car and the
guys. If I take a look at the computer and find
something wrong, he’ll go out and find it. If we
need something made, he’ll go back to his machine shop in Louisiana and make it. As we’re
going through the weekend, we just talk back
and forth. That’s how it works,” Corradi explains.
As for his driver, Corradi couldn’t be happier with Brown, who entered the 2016 NHRA
Countdown as the points leader with four event
wins. “Antron is a star. He’s a blessing to work
with. Very, very good at what he does. Good with
people. Matco loves him. Toyota loves him. U.S.
Army loves him. Everybody loves him. All the
fans love him. We love him. He’s like my brother.”
Corradi says the final ingredient in his recipe
for a rewarding career in racing can be found
back at home. “Family is important, obviously. My
wife is like the molasses that keeps it all together.
She’s the flour in the dough because she raised
the kids and she put up with the going out to the
races. In the beginning I was like a single guy. I
was never around. I was racing. I was traveling.
I had to drive everywhere. And she stuck there.
The kids, they missed a lot of stuff.”
Having lived the crew member life and knowing the grind of driving from race to race and
spending long days at the shop, Corradi makes
certain the young men who work under his direction don’t miss out on what really matters, too.
“I make sure that my guys, if they have something going on with their family, they can go. If
you can’t be here because your kid is graduating
or your brother is getting married, go. Don’t worry
about it. We’ll figure it out. That’s what having
a good team is all about,” he insists. “That’s one
thing I like about our team, and it’s always been
because I was a crew guy more than I was a crew
chief. I was in their shoes and I missed a lot of
stuff, so I’m trying to make it so they don’t have
to miss a lot of stuff. That’s important.”
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Dr ag Illustr ated
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D r a g Il l u s t r a t e d . c o m
PHOTOS: NHRA / NATIONAL DRAGSTER
BRIAN CORRADI