As the NASCAR calendar turns ever closer toward 2027, Carson Brown keeps turning laps toward his rookie season in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, where he will drive the No. 2 Whelen Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing (RCR).
The next race on the 18-year-old’s docket comes Saturday with the Blue Cross NC 250 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway. Brown will pilot the No. 32 TestEquity Chevrolet for Jordan Anderson Racing Bommarito Autosport, which has a technical partnership with RCR. It will be Brown’s second career O’Reilly Series start, as he made his debut with the team in the stepping-stone division to the elite NASCAR Cup Series Aug. 8 at Iowa Speedway in Newton.
Brown’s ability to learn as quickly as he drives was on full display at the .875-mile oval. It began with a 20th-place start in a deep, 37-car field. It featured live pit stops – a first for Brown – and then ended with a scrappy drive in an elbows-out green-white-checkered finish that netted eight spots to deliver a solid 15th-place result.
“It was a very good experience and I honestly wish that I could’ve just slept on it and taken another green flag the next day to see what would happen and what I would do differently in the seat,” Brown said. “I made my mistakes, but I would say in any debut, if you don’t make any mistakes, you’re not learning anything. I had a really good green-white-checkered, ended up passing a bunch of cars, and I’m just going to take all of that knowledge, improve on it, and go into Charlotte ready to do the best I can.”
Brown has been on a heater since Iowa, wrapping his time in the ARCA Menards Series in stout fashion by winning three times in his last four starts, a run punctuated by a last-lap pass for victory in the ARCA season finale Sept. 25 at the 1.5-mile Kansas Speedway in Kansas City. Making the win even more impressive was that it came in Brown’s first start of any kind at an intermediate-style oval, and he did it with zero track time, as rain earlier in the day washed out practice and qualifying.
“Kansas was a really good weekend, and going into Charlotte, I’ve got a lot more knowledge on all that goes into mile-and-a-half racing,” Brown said. “The O’Reilly Series will race quite a bit differently, especially aero-wise, but I know you can move around Charlotte like you can at Kansas, so I think that recent experience will definitely help. Running a mile-and-a-half before Charlotte got me a bit more prepared, and I just have a better idea of what to expect.”
Brown’s experience running high speeds on Kansas’ high banks will serve him well at Charlotte’s 1.5-mile oval. But one element that will remain a work in progress for the New London, North Carolina, native will be live pit stops. In developmental series like ARCA, pit stops happen at the midway break or under caution, where rules dictate that positions can neither be gained nor lost on pit road. It’s a cost-effective mandate, as it eliminates the need for teams to hire expensive and specialized over-the-wall pit crews, but it also means drivers get their first taste of live pit stops in either the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series or, as in Brown’s case, the O’Reilly Series.
“There’s really nothing that truly prepares you for live pit stops besides just doing it,” Brown said. “There are a lot of visuals that go into it. You’ve got to know exactly where your box is, but seeing what it looks like from inside the racecar is just different, same with your pit board and everything else. And sometimes you’re going to stop long, other times you’re going to stop short, other times you’re going to want to be pointed in a certain direction based on the cars around you and, obviously, you can’t speed. I think that’s the biggest penalty of them all – having to do a pass-through because you sped. You don’t have a speedometer in the car, you just have an RPM gauge, and you’re judging your speed based off the lights and where your RPM is at and what the team tells you on that side, so you never truly know how close you are to the limit on pit road. That’s quite a challenge – learning how far you can push certain things and not others. It’s a tricky, tricky thing, and it’s a double-edged sword, where if you do it right, you’re gold, but if you don’t, you’re a donkey.”
Donkey moments are hard to find in Brown’s career. He scored four ARCA wins this season, with the first coming March 5 at Phoenix Raceway before scoring three more wins during a four-week stretch in September. Along the way, Brown has dominated the ASA STARS National Tour, where four wins and three second-place finishes have given him a commanding 176-point lead in the championship standings. To put an exclamation point on his Late Model prowess, Brown earned his maiden CARS Tour West win Aug. 15 at Evergreen Speedway in Monroe, Washington, leading every lap from the pole.
“Our entire team really enjoyed working with Carson at Iowa, and what impressed me most was his demeanor and the way he handled the whole weekend while continuing to get better throughout the race. There’s a lot coming at you in that first start, and he stayed with it and put himself in position to finish strong,” said Jordan Anderson, team president of Jordan Anderson Racing Bommarito Autosport.
“Carson’s worked hard to get to this point with all the different cars and series he’s raced in, and he has an opportunity to have a great career ahead of him.”
Jordan Anderson Racing Bommarito Autosport competes full-time in the O’Reilly Series with a multi-car Chevrolet program. Led by Anderson, the organization has grown from its grassroots beginnings into a technical partner of RCR, with a continued focus on building competitive race teams and creating meaningful opportunities for emerging drivers.
“We’re really happy to help Carson prepare to race full-time for RCR next season,” Anderson added. “Our No. 32 program has become a great tool for the Chevrolet driver pipeline, giving drivers opportunities to gain experience in this series and take the next step in their careers. Building this team from the ground up, I know how much the right opportunity can mean to a young driver. We’re proud to have TestEquity on board and look forward to helping Carson end the 2026 season on a high note.”
Brown’s second drive with Jordan Anderson Racing Bommarito Autosport begins at 10:30 a.m. EDT Saturday with a 50-minute practice session followed by qualifying at 11:35 a.m. The Blue Cross NC 250 goes green at 4 p.m. EDT with live, flag-to-flag coverage delivered by The CW and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
— True Speed Communications —