‘I’m pretty satisfied’: CCU alum in thick of NASCAR Xfinity playoffs in 2nd full-time year
Since graduating from Coastal Carolina a couple years ago, Brandon Brown has put his NASCAR career in overdrive.
Now in his second season as a full-time driver in the Xfinity Series — NASCAR’s second-highest level — the CCU grad finds himself in the thick of the playoffs for the first time. He sits 10th in the 12-driver playoff field with one race to go in the first round.
Regardless of his end result, Brown will finish in the series’ top 15 for the second straight season after placing 15th in the standings in 2019.
“I’m pretty satisfied with how my career has gone so far,” Brown said Monday.
Though a series championship is the ultimate goal for this season, the Chanticleer alum’s chances of advancing to the second round of the playoff will require some help. He enters Saturday’s Drive for the Cure 250 presented by Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course 19 points behind Ross Chastain in eighth.
“It’s going to be a long shot for sure,” said Brown, who raced part-time in the Xfinity Series for five years, including his time at CCU. “We’ll really need to get out there and get a lot of points and we’ll need some of the other guys to have some bad days out there.”
Driving the No. 68 Chevrolet whose main sponsor is Larry’s Lemonade, Brown finished ninth last week at Talladega and 15th at Las Vegas in the first of the three-race Round of 12 portion of the playoffs. Still, a win at Charlotte this weekend would clinch him a spot in the final eight.
That in itself presents a unique challenge as the race is on one of NASCAR’s few road courses, which are winding, slower and more strategic type of track compared to most others that are ovals.
“I’m pretty confident going into it,” said Brown, a Woodbridge, Virginia native. “But there’s some guys who will be out there who are road-course specialists, so it will be a challenge.”
In recent years Brown has been able to build upon his race team, Brandonbilt Motorsports. He now has two race shops, one in Fredericksburg, Virginia and another in Mooresville, North Carolina. Also, having more races under his belt by transitioning to full time has paid dividends for the 27-year-old.
“It helps to have raced at the tracks before,” said Brown, who graduated from Coastal with a bachelor’s degree in communication and a minor in marketing. “Now when I go to the tracks I have notes rather than going in without much prior knowledge.”
Brown has driven cars that are heavily sponsored by CCU in the past and says he will have the university on his car as an associate sponsor this weekend. However, he said that partnership probably won’t continue long-term because of budget cuts at Coastal. That’s just one of the ways coronavirus has played a role in the 2020 season.
“It’s certainly made it harder to get sponsors because they’re all doing budget cuts,” Brown said. “You can’t have as many race team members at the track and there’s a lot stricter rules when we’re there.”
Regardless of Saturday’s finish, Brown has made the most of his first two years full-time in the series with a small, family-owned race team. Brown said his ultimate goal is to make it to NASCAR’s Cup Series one day, but for now he’s more interested in building his own race team.
“I’d like to see us have success to where we can build Brandonbilt Motorsports into one those big teams where we have the best equipment and all that,” said Brown, who’s yet to make it to the winner’s circle despite a bevy of solid finishes. “But yeah, it would be a dream to make it to the Cup Series one day.”
This story was originally published October 8, 2020 at 12:55 AM.
