3 days Ago
Tim Brown is going to race with the big boys of NASCAR in February at The Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium. Brown, 53, who is the all-time winner in the Modified Division at the historic track, will be getting a car to drive in The Clash on Feb. 2 at 8 p.
m. Brown, who works fulltime at Rick Ware Racing in Mooresville and is a suspension and drivetrain specialist, will drive a car the No. 15 Ford Mustang Dark Horse in The Clash.
He'll also be driving his Modified car on Feb. 1 that same weekend. "I've worked my whole life to try to be a Cup driver," Brown told Rick Ware Racing in a news release.
"I'm good with working on racecars for a living because it's still a pretty cool gig, but I always wanted to drive for a living. For Rick Ware and everybody involved here at RWR to give me the chance to go run a Cup race is so humbling and so heartwarming. It's really cool.
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Brown, a 12-time track champion who has 101 Modified wins, has 146 career poles in his time racing at Bowman Gray Stadium. His 101 wins are the most in Bowman Gray Stadium history. Ware is a former driver who transitioned to team ownership after too many injuries.
He said giving Brown this chance is the right move. "As someone who understands what it's like to try to achieve goals and move up the racing ladder, it's just a great opportunity for Tim and it's something we're proud to do," Ware said. "We've had the opportunity to give a lot of drivers their first Cup start, and this is one that's very well-deserved, especially at this track.
" Brown owns the fastest lap ever recorded (12.965 seconds on April 30, 2016) on the track. He won every pole during the 2003 season, and his championships span four decades, with titles in 1996, 1997, 1998, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2015, 2021 and 2022.
Brown certainly knows the track and will have a busy weekend with the Madhouse Clash, which is a 75lap race that will be run on Saturday. He will then turn around and race on Sunday night in The Clash. "That time in the Modified will be very helpful for multiple reasons," Brown said about the busy weekend.
"NASCAR has already done some updates to the stadium with soft walls and things like that. That's going to change the line of the racetrack because you make the track smaller." Brown said the lines have changed with the upgraded track.
"The line that we generally run, you won't be able to run because they run right out against the wall," Brown said. "If the soft walls take up two-and-a-half or three feet, now that's three feet that you can't let the car drift out to the wall. Just getting some track time before we climb in the Cup car, which I've never driven before other than on the chassis dyno, will be very helpful.
" Brown has been building Cup cars since he was in high school, first with Cale Yarborough Motorsports and through the many iterations of Cup technology, including the current-generation car. "I've been Cup racing for almost 35 years now, and I don't know that you'll find a Cup driver who actually gets to build his own Cup car from the ground up, chassis dyno it, and then go race it," Brown said. "These guys that work here at RWR, they're my buddies and they're all racers, and we get to do this as a group effort.
I actually get to put the nuts and bolts on it, and mount a seat, put the motor in it, and go drive it on the chassis dyno before I run it in the Clash. That's pretty cool." Brown said being at the highest level of NASCAR and racing in an event is something he dreamed about since he started racing at Bowman Gray Stadium at age 19.
"The guys who race these Cup cars today are elite," Brown said. "They're the best drivers in the world, and I'm not even going to put myself in that same category. I'm just going to do the best I can.
"I want to climb out of that thing at the end of the Clash and see my son, my daughter and my wife with big smiles on their faces and knowing that we did the best we could because, I promise you, I'm going to give it 110%. I just want to enjoy the moment, relish it and soak it all in. I'm not going to leave there and say, 'Hey, I'm a Cup driver, now.
' I'm just going to leave knowing this was the experience of a lifetime." Ware says NASCAR returning to the grassroots of racing means drivers like Brown should get a chance. "At Bowman Gray, Tim really has the same opportunity as anybody else," Ware said.
"He was with Roush for decades before he was with us. He's a very good mechanic. He's built all his own racecars, and he understands racing.
I think he's got an inside track just because he has touched every single part of these cars. He's a racer, and particularly at this track, he's got a lot of experience." jdell@wsjournal.
com 336-727-4081 @johndellWSJ Get local news delivered to your inbox!.
