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Brian Brown – Knoxville 360 Nationals This Week!

Brian Brown and the Casey’s General Stores/FVP #21 team are excited to get into Southern Iowa Sprintweek, starting with this weekend’s Knoxville 360 Nationals and the “Cappy Classic”. The Grain Valley, Missouri driver showed plenty of car speed last weekend in Jackson, Minnesota and at Knoxville Raceway. Brian will qualify this Friday for the 360 Nationals at Knoxville.

You competed at the Barb Wieskus Classic last Friday at Jackson Motorplex.

We knew Barb for a long time, and she sat in the stands with us with my grandma. We didn’t qualify as well as we wanted (seventh), but it worked out for us in the end. We were able to go from fourth to second in the heat. That put us in a good spot for the A, starting fourth.

You were able to come home with a top five in the feature.

The track got to be “top dependent”. If you got off the top, you got passed. We dropped back to fifth and ended up coming back to fourth. Overall, it was a decent night.

You raced in both the 410 and 360 classes at Knoxville on Saturday. After coming out 24th in the order in your group, you laid down quick time.

Things started really well. We hit the bottom really nicely and made a good lap. We went from sixth to fourth in the heat, but I didn’t feel we were as good as we needed to be.

The team seemed to make the adjustments needed, and you started the main event outside row three.

We got a good start the first time. We narrowly avoided a crash. We started sixth again, and got to fourth. We were able to get by Sawyer (Phillips) and Ian (Madsen). We chased (Sam) Hafertepe down and got by him. At that point, we set our sights on Terry (McCarl).

At that point, you had to feel like you had a shot at the win.

The yellow came out there, and I think it was setting up to be a barn burner. We had an engine failure late there, so things obviously didn’t pan out the way we’d hoped. But we had good car speed and that’s good heading into Friday’s 360 Nationals.

On the 410 side, things were going nicely as well.

We drew a good number and we were second quick. We’ve had an awesome car in the heat all year long, and we were able to go from sixth and win our heat. That’s big for us headed into the Nationals.

You seemed to struggle a little in the feature after starting sixth.

I probably turned in the worst twenty laps that I’ve driven in a long time. I made some bad decisions. I got into the fence and went from fourth back to 12th. We had to claw our way back to get in contention.

It was a great battle back through the pack.

We were going for a pass on Kerry (Madsen) for third, and I missed my line two corners in a row. We ended up sixth. I was disappointed in myself, but running twenty bad laps and still running sixth…it’s not the end of the world. We should be o.k. for the bigger events coming up.

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