Requiem for Brandon Brown

Requiem for Brandon Brown

By Brian H Cotnoir

On October 1, 2022, Brandon Brown made what--in all likelihood--would be his last start in his #68 Brandonbilt Motorsports.   Almost one year to the day where he shocked the NASCAR world by winning his first career victory in the Xfinity Series for his family-owned team, his once promising NASCAR career went out with a whimper finishing 33rd out of 38 drivers.    What should have been the greatest day of the Virgina drivers' life in 2021 would be become marred in controversy and he would unintentionally become a focal point of a Right-Wing Political Ideology, that his career could never recover from.  

The first time I remember hearing Brandon Brown's name was when legendary college basketball announcer, Dick Vitale declaring that Brown would win the season opening Truck Race at Daytona in 2016.  Now, I value Dick Vitale's knowledge and opinion on College Basketball, but when I heard this on ESPN, I remember thinking "What the hell does Dick Vitale know about NASCAR?   Does he really think this kid driving part-time for his family run team is going to win the biggest Truck Series race of the year?".  Well, he almost did.  He didn't lead any laps in the race, but still finished an impressive 4th place.

Over the next few seasons, I casually began following Brandon Brown's career and his surprise Top 10 finishes in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.  After he scored a 3rd place finish at Phoenix for his family run team, I really started following him.  He didn't have a big budget or big sponsors, and his team only had four full-time employees and they were competing for wins!   What really sealed my appreciation for Brandon Brown was when he made a promo video, pretending, he was a used car salesman looking for sponsorship.  After that, I knew I had found a new favorite Underdog to root for in NASCAR.   Every week I'd watch the Xfinity Series in hopes that Brandon Brown and his family run team would find Victory Lane.    And then he did it:   At the fall Talladega Race in 2021, Brandon Brown was declared the race winner and I was over the moon, because he had finally achieved his goal.  To me the really most memorable quote from that day was hearing Brown shout over his radio "We did it Dad!"; it was a beautiful moment, and then the crowd at Talladega ruined it.

I could hear it as clear as a bell during the Winners Interview the fans at Talladega going "F*ck Joe Biden" and then NBC Reporter Kelli Stavast did what I think any decent reporter, especially one on a Major National Network, would have done to cover it up: she said that the crowd was chanting "Let's Go Brandon".   I don't blame Kelli Stavast at all for saying the crowd was saying "Let's Go Brandon", but I don't her, Brandon Brown, or anyone could have imagined that it would have become as big of a deal as it was.    Shortly thereafter I began seeing "Let's Go Brandon" signs, t-shirts, and decals everywhere.

That was it: the fate of his career and team were sealed.   What corporation was going to sponsor a driver and risk alienating 50% of their clientele?  NASCAR didn't help Brown's situation ever: I have zero evidence to back up this claim, but I believe NASCAR purposefully altered the results of The Most Popular Driver Award because I believe the Dank Meme power of the "Let's Go Brandon" chant would have been enough to get him the votes to win the award.   I base this off of the fact that NASCAR doesn't report the total votes each driver receives for the Most Popular Driver Award, and I think that if Josh Wise can win the Fan Vote for the All-Star Race with sponsorship from DogeCoin then why couldn't Brandon Brown get enough votes for Most Popular Driver?  Another thing NASCAR did that impacted Brown's ability to find sponsorship was forbid him from listing the LGBCoin sponsorship.  Now, I know absolutely nothing about "Crypto-Currency", but I think it was unfair of NASCAR to rescind the approval for his sponsorship was wrong for a couple of reasons.  1.)  You had drivers in the Xfinity Series like Landon Cassil who were also sponsored by Crypto-Currency companies.  2.)  If NASCAR says one company can't sponsor a driver, then it could make other companies fearful of sponsoring the same driver.   3.)   Any attempts of NASCAR to distance themself from the "Let's Go Brandon" chants or disassociate themselves from Conservative Politics is entirely hypocritical.  For years we saw drivers and teams like Premium Motorsports, GoFas Racing, Korbin Forrester, Mike Harmon, and Tim Veins run "Trump for President" decals on their cars with no pushback.  Hell, Trump was even the Grand Marshall for the 2020 Daytona 500!  Oh, and let's not forget the incident that happened when former NASCAR CEO Brian France name dropped President Trump during his DUI arrest! I'm not saying NASCAR isn't allowed to have a change in political ideologies, but they could have done a lot more to help Brandon Brown and his team out, and I wish they would have gone as hard to find him sponsorship and support him, the same way they turned out for Bubba Wallace after the racial backlash he faced following the Confederate Flag ban at all NASCAR tracks.

Brandon Brown was and is still a hero of mine, because he reminded me of the old days of NASCAR that I grew up with, when a guy and his buddies could buy/build an old Busch Series car and enter it at tracks near their house.   If I ever won the lottery, you could bet that one of the first things I'd do is start a Modified Team with my father, and we'd go racing all the way around the East Coast!   Brown is not a bad person, or a villain, or even a Right-Wing Looney; he's a red-blooded man who got to live his dream of working and driving his own race cars, and just as he was reaching the mountaintop it was cruelly taken away from him for no good reason.   

I know life isn't always fair, and sometimes bad things happen to good people, but this story has absolutely broken my heart, and if it was any other driver that would have won (especially one driver from a big team, and with big sponsorship money) they would have had lawyers out the wahzoo who would have been able to squash a "Let's Go [Driver's First Name]" from appearing on T-Shirts and Signs.

I don't know what the future is going to hold for Brandon Brown or his race team, but all I know is he didn't deserve any of this negative backlash.