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Brian Brown- Good Finish at Knoxville!

Brian Brown and the Casey’s General Stores/FVP #21 team finished up their campaign at Knoxville Raceway Saturday with a solid second place finish. The night went well enough to also secure the second place standing in season points. This weekend, the Grain Valley, Missouri driver will be pulling double duty at the Jackson Nationals at Jackson Motorplex in Minnesota. The ASCS National main event will pay $10,000 to win, and the NSL feature winner will be awarded $25,000 in Sunday’s finales.

You had quick time for a while Saturday, but settled for second quick. You entered the night just 20 points ahead of Ian Madsen for second in the standings.

Maybe I should have run the bottom in both corners on both laps. Still, it was a good qualifying effort. Charlie Garrett does a phenomenal job with our engines, and continues to work to make our qualifying better every night out, fitting what we do with my driving style and with the car.

Despite the track staying fast, you were able to go from sixth to second in the heat.

We got a good start there. We were trying to score as many points as we could all night long. Finishing second in the points was important to us. Ian was in our heat race. We knew we needed to pass every car we could and stay in front of him. We were able to get up to second. We were running Matt (Moro) down at the end, but we couldn’t finish it off. I was happy with our run, because the track was still pretty narrow.

It was a good heat after struggling at the Nationals.

We’ve been trying to figure out where our downfalls have been at Knoxville and work on those to get better. Sometimes at the Nationals, you work out of a box. You don’t want to work on anything, because you don’t want to get away from the box. We had a different mentality this week, and we stretched the box a little bit. Every time we hit the track, we tried to make the right adjustments.

That put you outside row two for the feature.

We were beside Danny (Lasoski), and we were able to get by him on the first start. I felt that was going to be a crucial spot. Unfortunately, that didn’t go, and we didn’t get going as well on the second start. He was able to get in front of us. We were able to get into fourth, and then sneak by Brooke (Tatnell). It looked like Craig (Dollansky) and Danny were going to play bumper cars for a bit. They were carrying on, and I thought I might win by default. Danny was able to sneak by, and we just kind of stayed in the hunt. They had a late yellow, and we really nailed the bottom of one and two to get by Craig for second.

It looked like you had a real chance to win it at that point.

I knew I had one shot at Danny. I just didn’t get him cleared enough, and he heard me. Once you let a guy like him hear you, they start changing their line and that makes our job tough. We ended up second, and that nailed down second in points.

That was a great finish for you, considering you missed one night of racing.

In fifteen nights, I think we had ten podiums and three wins. We had two DNF’s, one for a part failure, and one for a crash. It may have not been a championship season for us, but in my opinion, it was one of the more consistent seasons we’ve ever had at Knoxville. The Nationals didn’t go as we hoped, but it felt like we were in contention to win every time we went to Knoxville. It’s something to build on for next year.

You will be doing double duty at this weekend’s Jackson Nationals.

We made a deal with Matt Wood to run his Ford again this weekend. We’re looking forward to that. The Jackson Nationals is an event. We go to a lot of races, but that is an event. With the 360 paying $10,000 and the 410 paying $25,000, we’re excited. We were in contention for the $20,000 to win race there in July, and we were in contention last year at the Jackson Nationals. We feel like we’ve got some good notes going in. It’s going to be a little more work for Chad (Morgan) and Michael (Williams), but we have the team to get it done and contend for a win in both classes.

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