Brandon Brown Discusses Fourth Place Finish in ‘Must Win’ Daytona Race

The future of the 28-year-old Xfinity Series driver remains unclear after Friday’s event.
Brandon Brown Discusses Fourth Place Finish in ‘Must Win’ Daytona Race
Brandon Brown Discusses Fourth Place Finish in ‘Must Win’ Daytona Race /

NASCAR driver Brandon Brown finished fourth in Friday’s Xfinity Series race at Daytona, sparking further uncertainty about his future as a full-time racer with his team, BMS. 

Brown, the racer at the center of the controversial, politically-charged “Let’s Go Brandon” chant that made him indirectly famous, has struggled to land sponsorships for his car this season. The team made a decision earlier in the year to prioritize drivers who have sponsorship money, leading Brown to be held out of a late-July race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

However, Brown had a chance to solidify his immediate future with BMS on Friday, where a win would have landed him in the Xfinity Series playoff field. He came up just short, notching another top-five finish, but seeing his shot at victory evaporate during the race’s overtime shootout. 

“Definitely a must-win if I was gonna be in the playoff,” Brown said after the race, per NASCAR.com contributor Dustin Albino. “The must-win feeling is kind of setting yourself up and show everybody, ‘Look, this kid’s a driver.’ That’s all I wanted to do. That’s all I ever wanted to do is drive and race for wins.

“It’s been a rough year. I just really, really wanted this one,” Brown continued, fighting back tears. 

Brown, who has chosen to be largely apolitical despite the derogatory chant directed towards President Joe Biden that features his name, had a deal fall through with a now-defunct cryptocurrency company that left him with a lack of adequate sponsorship support for his car. While Brown has not discussed his personal political beliefs, he has tried to use the chant to market himself as a driver. The cryptocurrency deal was “Let’s Go Brandon” themed.

“I’m still viewed as a political figure,” Brown told Frontstretch last month.

“I can be viewed as divisive because of the chant. It’s really hard to convince companies that, ‘Hey that’s not me. That’s just what the crowd was chanting’. It does make it hard.”

Brown still has plans to race at Talladega Superspeedway and Texas Motor Speedway later this year with BMS.

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Zach Koons
ZACH KOONS

Zach Koons is a programming editor at Sports Illustrated who frequently writes about Formula One. He joined SI as a breaking/trending news writer in February 2022 before joining the programming team in 2023. Koons previously worked at The Spun and interned for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He currently hosts the "Bleav in Northwestern" podcast and received a bachelor's in journalism from Northwestern University.