Track Schedules

Brian Brown – Looking Good at the Nationals!

(Bill W) August 15, 2011 – Brian Brown scored a career-best seventh place finish in Saturday night’s 51^st Annual Goodyear Knoxville Nationals in Knoxville, Iowa.  The FVP #21 team performed flawlessly all week to put themselves in position to finish up front on the biggest stage in sprint car racing.  The performed well, and they looked well, as they also brought in the “Best Appearing Crew” Award for the week.

Slated to start outside row three, the team tweaked some things after Saturday’s warm-up period.  “When we went out to hot lap, I think we were seventh quick, overall,” says Brian.  “It felt like our car wasn’t as good as it could be on the bottom, so I decided I’d tighten it up a bit.  We just got ourselves too tight with the fuel load for the first 15 laps.”

The Grain Valley, Missouri driver battled the car early on in the 50-lap main event.  “We gave up too much track position, and with the caliber of drivers you have there, you can’t do that,” says Brian.  “My goal was to stay somewhere in the top five the first half, and then really get after it the second half.  That wasn’t meant to be.”

But, after dropping back, Brian brought the FVP #21 roaring back into the top ten.  “I think the first lap of the second half of the race we were back in thirteenth or fourteenth,” he says.  “The last 20 laps or so we really took off.  I think if we would have had a yellow, we may have had a shot at a top five, but that never developed.  We were seventh and that’s something to build on for next year.”

The seventh place finish at the Nationals was worth a cool $19,000.  “I’m really proud of my guys,” says Brian of his team.  “They worked really hard all week long.  They did a great job and there were no mistakes.”

Still, the goal is to win it.  Winner Donny Schatz and Shane Stewart seem to be on top fo the game right now.  “I’m a firm believer that you don’t get many chances to win the Knoxville Nationals…unless you’re Donny Schatz,” says Brian.  “What he and Shane Stewart have done the last few years is really phenomenal when you look at it.  People say it’s hard to pass, but those guys get it done.  Donny doesn’t get near the credit he deserves, and neither does Shane.  I think the two guys on top of this sport right now finished one-two Saturday night.”

The team pocketed another $1,000 for the “Best Appearing Crew” Award.  “Ever since I’ve been coming to Knoxville, I’ve seen them give that Award,” says Brian.  “Awesome Racewear does a great job with my uniform and the crew uniforms.  It’s an absolute honor to get that Award, and we’d like to thank Knoxville Raceway for putting up the money for it.”

On Friday night, Brian was able to participate in the new “Race of Champions”.  He had a lot of fun with the event and finished eleventh.  “We actually took our primary motor out for that race,” he says.  “We were hoping to run a little better.  Everything we seemed to do with it seemed to make it worse.  I think the format of the race was really good.  Billy (Alley) didn’t do us any favors, but we could have started third or fourth, and we wouldn’t have been any good.  They need to continue with it, because I thought it was a great event and a lot more exciting than the Scramble format.”

 Everything seems to lead to the Nationals, but the FVP #21 has plenty of business still to take care of.  “We’re not sure of where we’ll be racing this week, other than we’ll be at Sedalia on Sunday,” says Brian.  “If people go to our Facebook page, we’ll be updating where else we’ll be at.”