Brandon Just Wants to Drive His Racecar

By Ben SmithDec. 19, 2021, 6:56 p.m. ET

WOODFORD, Va. — “What actually keeps you from getting any nausea is that you’re so zoned in on just doing this,” Brandon Brown said, speaking for himself after noticing that I’d barely avoided throwing up into my mask.

We were on our third loop on the oval track at Dominion Raceway, just a few yards east of Interstate 95 in central Virginia. After a couple of gentle loops, Mr. Brown steered us right up a short, sloped track — then floored the accelerator in the silver Chevrolet pace car and headed into a sharp left at 70 miles an hour.

He normally goes a lot faster, up to about 200 m.p.h., he said between turns. The trick is “keeping a lot of control and staying as smooth as possible, so you can drive as fast as possible,” he said. “You can ruin a lot of days if you start lollygagging and thinking of other things.”

Mr. Brown, wiry and intense at age 28, could talk about this stuff forever, and preferably nothing else. He has been dreaming of racing since he first got into a go-kart 20 years ago, and he will happily explain the nuances of the sport at length. But he has been losing sleep ever since he found himself suddenly tossed into what is every normal American’s worst nightmare: becoming a central character in this country’s hostile and divided politics.

Brandon Brown, you see, is the original Brandon, the guy in the anti-Biden rallying cry “Let’s Go Brandon!”

On Oct. 2, at the Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, Ala., he experienced the greatest thrill in his life when he raced to his first-ever NASCAR victory after 113 Xfinity Series contests. His face covered in sweat, an ecstatic Mr. Brown stood before an NBC Sports Network camera for the post-race interview, shouting, “This is a dream come true! Wow! Talladega! Dad, we did it!”

As the interview continued, a number of people in the stands started rhythmically chanting the name of President Biden preceded by a four-letter expletive, a chant that was clearly audible on the broadcast.

The reporter cut in with an attempt to stay on message and to cover up what was being said: “As you can hear, the chants from the crowd — ‘Let’s go, Brandon!’”

The moment was, objectively, pretty funny; it was also, to some on the right, a symbol of the way in which the news media ignores their views.

With the chant, a catchphrase was born. Soon afterward, “Let’s Go, Brandon” flags and yard signs popped up across the country. A Florida congressman intoned “Let’s Go, Brandon” on the House floor, and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida referred to the “Brandon administration.”

Mr. Brown wasn’t listening to the crowd when he was basking in his win. He first noticed that he had become a meme when he checked Twitter, which he uses almost exclusively for tweeting about NASCAR, with the occasional mild joke thrown in, for his nearly 30,000 followers.

He thought it was kind of funny, and a couple of days later he tweeted the phrase, followed by, “*not political … just feelin myself.” He tried another line later that week: “To all the other Brandon’s out there, You’re welcome! Let’s go us.”

But the hot slogan of the American right doesn’t turn out to be something you can easily shake off. Now Mr. Brown finds himself facing a threat to his vocation: He’s an athlete on the cusp of breaking out in a sport that relies on corporate sponsors, a group that likes nothing less than the whiff of divisive partisanship.

“Our whole navigation is, you want to appeal to everybody, because, all in all, everybody is a consumer,” Mr. Brown said after our drive. “I have zero desire to be involved in politics.”....
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/19/business/brandon-brown-lets-go-brandon.html