The local mission continues with the Darwin Triple Crown at Hidden Valley this weekend before the Townsville 500 on July 11-13.
In between, there’ll be a trip to the United States and NASCAR for the Chicago street race on July 6, where he’ll saddle up aboard a Kaulig Racing Camaro.
He won’t be the only Supercars driver heading Stateside after Darwin with Cam Waters tackling a Truck race on June 28, but it’s the return for Townsville that is tight for the reigning champion.
“Getting over there to [the team’s base in] Charlotte and preparing is not too bad,” explained Brown following the announcement of the deal.
“I fly out after Darwin and I’ll get a week and a half over in America to sort of prepare, hopefully get up on the GM simulator and do a bit of prep with the team.
“But coming back is probably the problem for us. I take off Monday morning after the race, and I get back in Wednesday, and we’re heading up to Townsville Thursday.
“I’ll probably have one day, just making sure there’s no flight delays and all that sort of stuff. But it won’t be a lot of recovery between the two events.”
Brown’s Chicago outing marks a chance to avenge a rough NASCAR debut at Sonoma last year, where he proved quick in practice but was beset by electrical trouble in qualifying and the race.
The Chicago deal was two years in the making. He’d hoped to contest the event last year following Shane van Gisbergen’s win in 2023, but fell afoul of a Supercars date clash.
“We were trying to push Supercars last year before the calendar came out, to make sure that Chicago isn’t a clash,” he said.
“So when I saw that [2025 calendar] came out, straight away, we jumped on and looked that we could do Chicago, and how do we make that deal come about?”
It came about largely through the same sponsor group that funded his 2024 Sonoma ride with Richard Childress Racing.
That includes Peter Adderton (MobileX), Triple Eight co-owners Earl Evans (Shaw & Partners Financial Services) and Steve Blackmore (SCTR), as well as Supercars itself.
While there is a perception that Supercars is scared of losing more of its stars to NASCAR after van Gisbergen’s departure, the category is highly supportive of Brown’s exploits.
“I get along very well with the guys at Supercars, and they’re actually supporting and sponsoring my endeavour to come over there and compete,” Brown confirmed.
“So they’ve been very supportive of it, and I think they want us to go over and show what Supercar drivers are capable of.
“And also hope that some fans over there watch us, watch our racing, and see how competitive it is over here.
“So it’s great to have that alliance with them, and great for them to be supporting me.”
For more of the latest NASCAR news and analysis, visit Speedcafe US
Discussion about this post