Brian Brown – Looking to Defend at Jackson!
Brian Brown – Looking to Defend at Jackson!
(Bill W) August 26, 2014 – This weekend, Brian Brown and the Casey’s General Stores/FVP #21 team will be looking to defend their Jackson Nationals championship at the Jackson Speedway in Jackson, Minnesota. On Sunday, they will compete in the $3,000 Bobby Parker Memorial at the I-80 Speedway near Greenwood, Nebraska. The Grain Valley, Missouri driver had what seemed to be victory snatched from his hands last Saturday night at Knoxville Raceway when he was involved in a red flag tangle.
You drew the first pill for qualifying, but you didn’t get any hot laps and you ended up eighth quick.
We wanted to try something different with the car…a new configuration. I pulled in, and we weren’t able to get a lap in hot laps. There were problems with the steering gear. At that point, we were guessing a little bit in qualifying. The track did get a little better as qualifying went on, but eighth was better than ninth with the feature invert.
You went on to finish second in your heat.
It was pretty uneventful. Tasker (Phillips) got out there and did a good job and made some good laps. He was actually pulling away from us. We went to work and tried to make it a little better for the feature.
You were definitely the favorite heading into the feature starting on the pole.
We knew we had a good opportunity to win with a fast track and starting on the front. We were able to get a good start. I saw (Mark) Dobmeier out of the corner of my eye on the first lap, and I knew he was probably going to be the one I had to beat.
You pulled away and were setting a good pace in lapped traffic. The first nineteen laps went non-stop.
We just tried to run every lap as hard as we could and make good decisions in lapped traffic. Then we had the red on lap nineteen. I think we were coming up to lap eleventh at that point. I think Danny (Lasoski) was the next one. Obviously, the red came out.
…and that’s when things went wrong.
I was coming off of four, and I saw Bronson (Maeschen) crashing. It looked like he might be coming back into my lane, so I was slowing down and getting ready to take evasive action. I looked up and Glen (Saville) was at a dead stop. I tried to miss him, but I barely clipped him and knocked the front axle out.
That was a tough break!
It’s part of racing. John McCoy is adamant at the driver’s meeting about stopping when the red comes out so the best safety crew in the world can get to us. Glen didn’t do anything wrong. It’s tough to stop these things on a dime at 130 m.p.h.
Fortunately, you had a lot of help in the work area and they got you back out on the track.
We were lucky enough to have Chad (Morgan), Zac (Thomas), Greg (King), Grandpa (George Lasoski) and Snook (Glen Wignal) from our team. Cole and Matt Wood and Gary Isom from their team, and some guys from some other teams made it possible for us to get out. It just shows the sportsmanship and comradery in our sport. Those guys don’t have to help out. I’d like to thank all those people. We were able to get out there and go 12th to 7th and salvage some kind of a finish.
How are you feeling heading into the Jackson Nationals Friday and Saturday?
We’ve been pretty good the last few times we’ve been there…especially the big money races. We’re the defending champion of the race, so our goal is definitely to win. We need to put ourselves in position all weekend long. The main thing is to get yourself locked in for Saturday on the first night (top four). We’ve been fast there, but we’ve had some luck with the draw too. We could use both this weekend.
I know you’re excited about I-80 as well.
We’ll hit I-80 for the Bobby Parker Memorial on Sunday. So we’ll be hitting two of my five favorite tracks this weekend, and racing them for some good money.
Category: Brian Brown, Driver Updates
