Antron Brown is a three-time NHRA World Champion and the first African American auto-racing champion. I had a chance to talk to Antron about his career, his family and what the sport needs to do to succeed.
Let’s start with the picture you posted on your Twitter feed of you and your daughter from when she was little and then now that she’s driving. That was an amazing photo. You are one proud dad.
It kills me how they grow up way too fast. All the stuff that my daughter does is just mind-boggling to me, from dancing to racing junior dragsters. I am a real proud dad and super blessed just to see what she has become, because she’s such a hard worker, too.
She grew up fast and ready to drive!Getting her license on Friday. Still wants daddy to hold her though! #babygirl #gettingdownwithbrown pic.twitter.com/wzSL5Y3qlZ
— Antron Brown (@AntronBrown) March 27, 2018
You’re a professional race car driver, but does the dad side of you get scared about your daughter racing too?
The funny part is that I’m just really, really, really … I don’t know if you can say used to it now, because my daughter’s been driving since she was literally eight years old. in junior dragster racing. The biggest part is to let her go. She’s got all this freedom now, but she’s like, “Dad, I’m out.” And I’m, “I don’t want you to go yet! I don’t want you to go!”
There’s a difference between loving something and then thinking, “I can do that as a career.” When did it change for you?
I was sitting in my college dorm room and I got this phone call from Troy Vincent who at the time, played for the Philadelphia Eagles. He’s thinking about starting a professional motorcycle team. He says, “I want to know if you wanna be in the race.” I said, “I’m all in.”
The craziest part for me was that I had to tell my mom because I was going to college on a full track scholarship, but now I had the chance that I’ve always truly loved. And that was drag racing. It was a big decision for me to give up my scholarship and take this racing venture. I grew up racing dirt bikes and motor-cross. This was my second chance to go on two wheels and go racing professionally, which my dad and uncle do and they always dreamed of doing it for a living but didn’t. They were so busy running our family septic tank business in South Jersey. I grew up doing that, but it was one of the ideals instilled in me that if you want something, you have to go for it and put the work in to get it.
You got that phone call in 1997, but were you concerned about making a living doing something that was brand new?
I was ready to go because I had nothing but confidence in what Troy wanted to go out and achieve. It was a goal for him to have a championship caliber team. I looked up to him as a hero. He was the one that made it out of my neighborhood in Trenton, New Jersey. He gave it his all. This was who I wanted to be like. This was my mentor and he became like an older brother to me. I looked up to him and was by his side for the first three years of my professional career on the racetrack and off the racetrack. I think that’s where my success came from.
Today it’s not just about being out there winning championships, it’s about building relationships. He taught me to not just think about myself, but how to represent companies in a professional manner, such as US Army, Toyota, Papa Johns, Shell Oil Company, which is Pennzoil and Matco Tools, my primary sponsor. That’s something that stuck with me — to be the best version of myself. That’s what I show to you today.
I do a lot of motivational talking to kids in colleges and high schools about how to fulfill their dreams and their goals and make them a reality. Just trying to make other people better and achieving things people don’t think you can achieve. That’s my motto that I live by every day. Every day is a better day because you’re growing and you’re learning and you’re pushing yourself to a new limit. That’s my goal.
What did learn from your family’s experiences and did you have an opportunity to ask for advice before you started your career?
My dad was a good help because of his drag races, but the one that I really talked to was my mom. My mom was always my home base. My safe point. Where I can go to and lean on and talk to, and get guidance. Every time I always had my mom look at me I’m like, “I’m gonna be alright.”
There’s a sense of danger with your sport. I’ve seen your crash. Talk about how you work through that part of the competition with your family.
That accident definitely set me back and it scared my wife to death. It scared my family to death. But the biggest thing is how you recover from it. You get up and you walk away from it. You go into the next run and you gotta treat it like a new run. But, yet, you still have respect for what happened and it makes you more up on your toes, more alert when things go wrong with the race car.
You don’t take ever run for granted. That makes you not take your life for granted. Each and every one of my hugs to my children and when I tell them, “I love you.”, it’s even more heartfelt. It’s not going through the motions. Every time you set foot in a race car, you don’t know if the next day is guaranteed for sure, especially when you’re going 330 miles an hour. But it’s something I enjoy.
What have you had to adjust to continue to be as good as you are?
The biggest thing that we had to adjust is where we grow every day. I like to learn from my mistakes. I just don’t make a mistake and say, “Okay, I messed up, let’s move on.” I’m very critical of myself. I look at how I made that mistake, so I don’t make that same mistake twice. I was pushing myself. I thought that I had to be better and win a race by cutting a light. I ended up running the red light and throwing the race away. And when I did that, it was like the roughest time for me, when that happened. Because I never do anything like that. I was overdoing it.
So is racing more a physical sport or is it more mental?
You can’t have one without the other. Somebody can’t say they’re mentally strong, but not be physically fit.
Pick something specific that’s been the biggest challenge for the industry as a whole.
The biggest challenge in the industry is that our sport’s been one of the best kept secret sports out there. Our fan access, no other sport’s even close to it. It’s fan appeal, converting people to being new fans. If you come see it live, every person that’s ever come out is hooked to it. Since we went to SS1 and Fox sports, we have about four of our races on the main network channel Fox. We share the same network as NASCAR now. Our sport’s been growing tremendously each and every year. Our viewership, our first year on Fox, ESPN, it actually quadrupled itself. We went to a .5 rating to a 2.5 rating on average. That was really incredible. Really awesome.
Right now, when you see other motorsports going downhill, our sport is on the incline.
The biggest challenge for us right now is to keep that on the rise and to make it more of a lifestyle sport. That’s where NASCAR has really excelled. Where everybody’s household names. Everybody knows who Jeff Gordon is. Everybody knows who Danica Patrick is, and they’re not even race fans. That’s the difference. That’s the biggest challenge for us, to keep doing what we’re doing, but to uprise and become those household names.
Looking back on your career, what would you now tell a newbie coming into the industry that you wish someone had told you when you started?
What really astonished me was the travel in our sport. How different Georgia was from Grant, Minnesota and how different Seattle, Washington is different from all those areas. That was the biggest thing to me. It’s just to see how people respond differently, but yet how people still love and welcome with open arms in every different place you go and how they give respect for the craft that you do. I guess when you execute excellence on your racetrack, people give you respect for what you do and not where you’re from or what color you are. That’s how they should treat you in life, period. And not have that color barrier.
Follow Antron on Twitter at @AntronBrown or visit his website http://antronbrown.com.
