By Seth Eggert, Staff Writer
As a small team with a small notebook, Brandon Brown and Brandonbilt Motorsports hope to play the strategy game at Charlotte Motor Speedway for the second year in a row.
For the 2021 running of the Alsco Uniforms 300, Brown and his team saved a set of tires for the end of the race. A timely caution allowed the Woodbridge, VA native to change tires and make a run to the front. However, Brown never got the final caution he needed to make a run for the win. The 28-year-old earned his first top-five finish at Charlotte.
In NASCAR’s backyard, Brown has that one top-five and two top-10s on the Charlotte oval. With the team based in Mooresville, N.C. the Concord, N.C. track is the home track for Brandonbilt, like most of the NASCAR industry.
“It adds the benefit of the extra pressure, but it’s also in the backyard of the NASCAR industry,” explained Brown. “All of the teams have years and years of experience. They’ve got big notebooks when it comes to Charlotte Motor Speedway. We don’t have that big of a notebook there, so that’s the disadvantage but something that we’re going to work hard to quickly overcome.
“The benefit to that is when you don’t have a big notebook, it makes you operate in the mindset of working differently than the other teams and what they’re doing. We’re going to have to go off strategy. It paid off dividends last year when we put on a brand-new set of tires with less than 15 to go and drove from the rear to a top-five. Hopefully we can do that again.”
Charlotte is a temperature sensitive track. The race is also in the heat of the day as temperatures begin to rise. The combination makes for slick conditions on track, and a need for drivers to prep for the heat to avoid dehydration and exhaustion.
“Charlotte is an extremely hot, long race, admitted Brown. “Ours is going to be in the heat of the day. You’re going to see a lot of drivers falling out of their seats due to dehydration or lack of preparation for the race. That adds to some benefit as well as when it’s hot, slick, and people make mistakes. It’s all about who’s going to be there to take advantage of those mistakes. We have to make sure that we’re the car that does.”
Brown enters Charlotte 16th in the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship points standings. He is 86-points behind the playoff cutoff held by Daniel Hemric.
On Thursday, May 26, Brandonbilt Motorsports will have an open house for NASCAR fans from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
The Alsco Uniforms 300 is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. EST on Saturday, May 28.
Featured Photo Credit: Photo by NKP / NKP Photo.
