AUTO RACING: School Comes First For Drew Brannon

BY JIM CNOCKAERT
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER

DAMASCUS, Va. – Drew Brannon wasn’t offering empty platitudes when he told sixth-graders at Damascus Middle School on Tuesday that it’s important they focus on their education.

He was speaking from experience.

The 16-year-old Brannon is an up-and-coming stock car driver on the ASA Late Model regional and national circuits who, if his career continues to progress rapidly, will move into the NASCAR Camping World truck series as soon as he’s old enough in two years.

But his parents have made it abundantly clear to Brannon that his career ambitions will never cross the starting line unless he continues to take care of business in the classroom.
That helps to explain why he is an A and B-plus student at the Christian high school he attends in Miami, Fla.

“My parents made it clear to me right from the start: If I got C’s or below, I couldn’t race,” Brannon told the students.

In the sixth grade, Brannon found out the hard way that his parents weren’t kidding. His report card arrived at the house the week before he was scheduled to race for a series championship at his local track, and he’d gotten a C in one of his subjects. His parent immediately yanked him out of the driver’s seat; he didn’t race that weekend.

He lost the championship but got the message. His grades haven’t slipped since.

“I love racing. It’s what I want to do with my life,” Brannon said. “But I also want an education. That way, if the racing doesn’t work out, I have something I can fall back on.”

Brannon said he hopes to attend North Carolina State, which would put him in the heart of NASCAR country, and he plans to study engineering or business. But he might also follow another career path: He loves to cook, so if he doesn’t wind up on the Speed Channel, he could wind up on the Food Network.

Brannon has been racing cars since he was 4 years old. That’s when his father spotted a go-kart for sale and bought it for him. He finished second in his first race at the local go-kart track, and he’s been taking checkered flags ever since. He was a nine-time Florida state go-kart champion before moving into bigger and faster cars.

Though he’s only getting started in that arena, he brings with him a wealth of experience. He knows what it’s like to roll a car and walk away. He’s been burned in a wreck. He got a concussion after his car spun and slammed into a wall.

And this week, during testing this week at Rockingham Speedway, the engine in his car blew up just as the speedometer hit 150 miles an hour.

“We blew the block right out of the car, and that was really scary,” he said. “I wasn’t able to keep the car [going] straight. Luckily, I didn’t hit anything.”

Brannon races for the SS Green Light racing team that also sponsors Chad McCumbee in the truck series. Brannon’s crew chief and mentor is Abingdon’s Butch Miller, a three-time ASA champion and veteran short-track racer. Another integral part of the race team is Miller’s wife, Donna, who formerly taught at Damascus Middle School. She arranged for Brannon to speak to the students there Tuesday.

“It was the only day we could fit into his schedule,” she said. “That’s how busy he is.”

Though Brannon appears to be on a racing fast track – he’s already won four of the six races he’s entered in 2009 – he said he has learned to be patient in terms of advancing his career. It’s an attitude he’s gotten partly from his parents and partly from the Millers. He wants to make certain that he is at the top of his game at one level, he said, before he moves on to the next. That way, he said, he’ll know he is ready for the new challenge.

No matter how far Brannon progresses within the sport, he said, he is determined to do it with class. That’s why, he told the students Tuesday, that Kyle Busch is no longer his favorite driver – not after Busch smashed the one-of-a-kind guitar he’d just won in the Nationwide race last weekend in Nashville, Tenn.

“I admire Kyle as a driver, because he can get into any car and make it go fast,” Brannon said. “But after he smashed that guitar ...
“I can’t imagine doing something like that. I would almost have been afraid to hold [the guitar]. I would have given it to someone to pack into a case so I could get it home, and then I would have put it on display. You have to treat something like that with respect.”

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