KNOXVILLE, Iowa — Brian Brown strolled down the Avenue of Champions at his beloved Knoxville Raceway, weaving through the Knoxville Nationals crowd while carrying a fresh pizza from sponsor Casey’s, and spotted a pair of reporters he recognized.
If you know Brown, it’s no surprise what happened next: He made a detour to chat, opened the pizza box and insisted on sharing a slice.
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It’s no wonder Brown is a fan favorite at Knoxville, where he’s a four-time track champion and now 55-time feature race winner after finishing ahead of Kyle Larson in Thursday night’s prelim A-main. His outgoing personality and interactions with the public are reminiscent of Carl Edwards during that driver’s NASCAR prime.
“He’s just a really good guy — really good with fans, really good with the kids,” Larson said after watching his friend win Thursday. “There’s nobody better when it comes to how they treat their sponsors. He’s just an all-around likable guy.”
Larson has known Brown since visiting the Brian Brown Racing shop in Missouri 10 years ago with friend Justyn Cox, who drove for Brown’s team at the time. As the years have gone on, the Larson/Brown relationship has strengthened; they frequently text and often hang out when at the same dirt track.
In turn, Brown holds Larson in high esteem — he called Larson “the GOAT” multiple times on Thursday night and said he was just happy to be competitive with Larson when finishing second to the No. 57 car at another Iowa track on Monday night.
They didn’t exactly go head-to-head on Thursday — Brown already had a sizable lead by the time Larson reached the top three from his 21st-place starting spot — but Brown wasn’t going to nitpick after holding off two hard-chargers in Larson and Brent Marks (who finished third).
“Anytime you can race against a guy like Kyle or Brent, it shows where you are as a team,” Brown said. “If they give you a lap head start, you’ll take it.”
That good result for the team was as a welcome sign to Brown, who has arrived at past Knoxville Nationals as one of the favorites. He finished second to 10-time Nationals winner Donny Schatz three straight years from 2012-14 and figured a victory in sprint car racing’s biggest event could come soon.
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But it didn’t, and Brown has barely been a factor in some of the years since. He’s tied with Joey Saldana for the most second-place finishes in Nationals history without actually winning it and missed the A-Main at the most recent Nationals in 2019.
That’s painful for a driver who has been coming to races at Knoxville since he was 2 years old (or even younger — he can’t remember) thanks to watching uncle Danny Lasoski, an 11-time track champion and four-time Nationals winner.
“(The Nationals) mean a lot to me in my heart,” Brown said. “This is my favorite week of the year — as a fan. I’m just lucky enough that at 6 o’clock, I get to go drive in it.”
So it came as a massive relief for Brown to lock himself into Saturday night’s A-Main, where he’ll start ninth and have at least a shot at finally winning the Nationals at age 42 — even if it means he’ll have to pass the likes of Larson (who starts third) and former Nationals winners like Schatz (fifth), David Gravel (sixth) and Brad Sweet (second). Promising 19-year-old racer Gio Scelzi is on the pole.
.@dirtvision Highlights: 🏁 @BrianBrown21 WINS #WolfeEyeClinic Qualifying Night of the @NosEnergyDrink Knoxville Nationals presented by @caseysgenstore!#NOSvilleNationals pic.twitter.com/mPVTfTUpfj
— Knoxville Raceway (@knoxvilleraces) August 13, 2021
During the earlier conversation over pizza, Brown said he enjoyed being somewhat under the radar this year. The relative lack of expectations compared to the first few years, coming off his string of runner-up finishes, allowed him to breathe a little and work with his new crew chief — Lasoski — without as much of a spotlight.
Last month, with performance growing stagnant, Brown made the difficult decision to replace longtime crew chief Chad Morgan. Brown called his uncle, asked for help and Lasoski “showed up and didn’t bat an eye,” Brown said.
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There’s been a noticeable increase in performance since then, and it’s helped rebuild Brown’s confidence. On Monday in Oskaloosa, for instance, Brown’s car felt off in the heat race and Lasoski told him: “Let me do something here. I promise you I’m not gonna put you out there in something I wouldn’t drive myself. It’s going to work.”
The changes indeed went in the right direction, and Brown said the car was “a rocket ship” after that.
“A lot of times when you get a crew chief who has never driven, he says, ‘Run it down there in the corner — it’ll stick,'” Brown said. “Well, that’s fine and dandy until you put it out of the ballpark. When you have a guy that’s driven, he knows what a car is capable of.”
Whether the Brown/Lasoski duo can create enough magic to win on Saturday night remains to be seen, but it’s clear the Knoxville fans would erupt if the white No. 21 car were to end up in victory lane.
“He’s their horse,” Larson said. “He’s their local guy who can win the Nationals, so I think people all over the country appreciate that and cheer for him because of it.”
Related reading:
Kyle Larson’s merchandise sales are booming in the dirt racing world
Catching up with Kasey Kahne after he locked into the A-Main
(Photo: Jeff Gluck / For The Athletic)
Jeff Gluck has been traveling on the NASCAR beat since 2007, with stops along the way at USA Today, SB Nation, NASCAR Scene magazine and a Patreon-funded site, JeffGluck.com. He's been hosting tweetups at NASCAR tracks around the country since 2009 and was named to SI's Twitter 100 (the top 100 Twitter accounts in sports) for five straight years.
