The 26-year-old this week confirmed a deal with Kaulig Racing to contest the Chicago event, which will mark his second NASCAR start following a debut at Sonoma last June.
Shane van Gisbergen’s shock victory at Chicago in 2023 triggered a flood of interest from Supercars drivers in competing Stateside, as well as instigating the Kiwi’s own full-time switch.
Brodie Kostecki, Cam Waters and Brown have all since raced in the Cup Series, while Supercars co-driver Jack Perkins is set to tackle the Portland Xfinity race in July.
Asked about the Supercars ‘invasion’ by US media this week, Brown emphasised Chicago was a logical target for any drivers from Down Under due to the nature of the circuit.
“We’re all coming over and doing street courses. We’re all cheating, none of us are doing an oval!” he laughed.
Waters did run oval tracks at Martinsville and Kansas in the Truck Series in addition to the Sonoma Cup race last year but has struggled to raise the funding to return.
“I think the biggest thing for us, realistically, it comes down to sponsors and support,” explained Brown, who has a bevy of backers led by MobileX and Shaw and Partners.
“Hopefully for myself, if I can have a good run at Chicago, potentially my sponsors and hopefully someone else will back me into maybe doing an Xfinity or a Truck oval.
“But it’s very hard to get the support and sponsors to go and run an oval straight away, because we probably are going to struggle [with] the first one.
“Just to get that sponsorship is probably the difficult part.”
Brown said he’s been watching most of van Gisbergen’s Cup races this year and is fully aware of the challenge involved in adapting to a very different kind of races.
“It’s shown how competitive those guys are over there, and also how difficult the ovals are. There’s a lot to learn on them,” he said.
“It’s been interesting watching Shane. He had some really good runs last year and looked very competitive and then this year he’s having a bit more of a tough time.
“But it’s great to see him run well on the weekend at the Coca-Cola 600 so hopefully he picks it up and can get more competitive on the ovals.”
Van Gisbergen’s struggles on the ovals have cooled any talk that Supercars could lose more of its stars to the US full-time.
However, Brown – who replaced van Gisbergen in the Triple Eight team last year and stormed to a championship win – isn’t ruling anything out.
“I think it’s too soon to say,” said Brown when asked if he’s eyeing a full-time NASCAR move.
“I’m sort of pretty comfortable here in Australia. I’ve got a great team here around me here at Red Bull Ampol.
“You never know until the offer got put in front of you, if there ever was the opportunity, but right now, for me, it’s kind of scratching an itch.
“It’s going over there, competing against some of the best in the world, seeing how I fare up against them and trying to do the Aussies proud.”
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