Brown has just one Cup Series start to his name with Richard Childress Racing at Sonoma last year, which was blighted by electrical gremlins.
This time, Brown has switched teams, joining Trackhouse Racing-affiliated outfit Kaulig Racing.
Ahead of the Grant Park 165 at the Chicago Street Course, Brown said he’s been studying hard.
Unlike Supercars, the Cup Series cars do not have a pit lane speed limiter. That’s just one element he’ll have to get used to again after a little more than a year out of the stock car series.
“For me, it’s going to be about trying not to get a penalty on pit road,” said Brown, speaking on NASCAR podcast Stacking Pennies with Corey LaJoie.
“For us, we brake into the pit lane, press a button, that holds us, limits us to 40 km/h, like a GT car. We pull into our pits and our crew is already there, they don’t run out in front of the car.
“There are just little things. Last week I was watching someone came across too early and clipped three [pit] boxes and got a penalty, so for me, that’s something that I’m not used to in Australia and something that could catch me out quite easily.
“Driving to the [dashboard rev] lights down pit lane, where you go around the corner, change to which light you’re [looking] at.
“That’s just something you, over time, build muscle memory to doing it. You guys are doing it every day and not having a problem, but for me, I’ll be modulating the throttle trying to get to the lights.
“The pit lane will be the tough part just making sure I make no mistakes and not losing too much time there. That’s something where I’ve had to look into it and try learn the rules.”
Brown said he hoped he could replicate some of the speed he showed at Sonoma but stopped short of putting a number on where he would like to finish.
With Richard Childress Racing, Brown put the #33 Chevrolet Camaro third quickest in practice before gremlins struck in qualifying and returned for the race.
Brown will drive the #13 Mobile X-backed Camaro in Chicago, a circuit he said will feel familiar to Supercars circuits.
“You want to go well,” said Brown.
“It’s hard putting expectations on it because you saw what Shane [van Gisbergen] did his first year, but then from there it’s not just been easy wins, you know what I mean? Even on road courses.
“I felt like Sonoma we were having a good run until we had the things go wrong in qualifying. We were third in practice and then we had a tough qualifying.
“I’m probably not going to put a number on it just yet and say – but if we’re in that top 10 to start with, we’d be very happy.
“It’s sort of an unknown for us right now, but it is very similar to what we do in Australia. Chicago is probably very similar to five of our race meetings.
“We’ve got Gold Coast, which is super tight. Probably even tighter than Chicago.
“We run a lot of those road course, street course type of events, so it’s something we’re pretty familiar with over there.”
The two-day NASCAR Cup Series Grant Park 165 begins with practice at 3am (AEST) on Sunday followed by qualifying at 4am (AEST). Monday’s race, which takes in 75 laps begins at 4am (AEST).
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