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Brian Brown – Fourth at FVP Western Spring Shootout!

(Bill W) March 28, 2017 – Brian Brown and the Casey’s General Stores/FVP #21 team reeled off another strong finish with the World of Outlaws at the FVP Western Spring Shootout last Saturday at Stockton Dirt Track in California. The event was shortened to one night after Friday rained out. A busy weekend awaits with three California WoO stops at Placerville Speedway Wednesday, Keller Auto Speedway in Hanford Friday and Perris Auto Speedway Saturday.

With rain in the area, you had to wonder if you’d get any racing in.

We were just really happy to get Saturday in. It seemed everywhere in the country was receiving rain. Friday was washed out and Saturday was kind of a tossup. When we got there, you could tell they had a lot of rain, but it was good that they went on with the show.

It was important with FVP being the presenting sponsor.

They were the sponsor of the race and we had close to 250 FVP customers and employees there. It seems we’ve been feast or famine at the FVP sponsored races. We’ve either been really good, or really bad, so it was good to finish well. The crowd was phenomenal. I think it was one of the better crowds I’ve seen in sometime…upwards of seven to ten thousand.

You came out late in the order, but laid down fourth quick in your group.

That put us in a good spot going forward. Our engines are really good right now, and I think we’re making good decisions with our car. To be able to go out and put ourselves in the front row (outside) of the ehat was really important. The heats were a little one-lane. It was good to be able to start in the front row beside Jason Sides and run second. That put us in a good spot to get to the Dash.

The draw saw you start the Dash in the eighth spot.

We were able to get a good start. We were able to get to fifth by turn one. I tried to go around the outside of a couple more, and I hooked a hole. That took us over the bank and we were back in eighth like that. We knew we had a decent car at that point. We knew if Chad (Morgan) and Michael (Williams) could make some minute changes, we could get even a little extra out of it.

The track must have widened by feature time, and you were starting eighth.

The track was better. You had to pick your battles and pick your marks. We were able to get a good start again and went from eighth to fifth. We were able to get by Jason when he had a little trouble and get to fourth.

There were a few cautions that you had to maneuver through along the way.

We had two or three double-file restarts. They are tough anyway, but when you add holes and cars that are bouncing around, it can make it nerve-wracking as a driver. Sometimes when you come off turn two where you started, you are happy to take a deep breath and get back to racing.

You ended up running a strong fourth.

We got to racing with Jason Johnson and he had some trouble and got tipped over. At that point, we knew we had a solid shot at a top five finish. We were able to get beside Shane (Stewart) a couple of times for third. We just weren’t able to pull off that pass and we came home fourth. I was proud of our team for having a strong night on track conditions that aren’t usually my favorite.

This has been a really strong start to 2017.

I think we’ve had five out of seven feature finishes in the top five with the Outlaws. Hopefully, we can go to Placerville tomorrow, Hanford on Friday, and we’ll have some more FVP customers and employees at Perris Saturday. We hope we can get three solid finishes and continue our strong start to the year.

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