He was hitting .348 through 37 games of his final season when he broke his leg, ending his baseball career.
After graduation, Brown spent the next two years "playing softball and goofing off," as he put it. He took
a job as an estimator for his father's construction company, where he still works during the week.
Then came a strange and unexpected offer. Newman's rear tire carrier, Trent Cherry, who had played football
against Brown in high school, asked if he would consider trying out for a pit crew job.
"Trent knew I was done with sports and living in Charlotte and not really using my athleticism to any gain,
so he called me up and asked if I wanted to and got me a tryout," Brown said Saturday at Darlington
Raceway, while gluing lug nuts to front tires arranged in tidy rows behind the pit wall. "I had to run a 40
(yard dash), do a bench press, vertical jump, body fat -- all kinds of stuff. Basically, I got a gig as a
developmental guy, and that's really where it all started."
Brown started coming to the track as a backup.
"They would rent me out to other teams to do pit stops and get experience. The first race I did for Ryan
Newman was the Brickyard 400 that first year (2004). That was the only one I did for Ryan. The year after
that, the front changer had left, so it was my job to lose, and I haven't lost it yet."
In recent years, athleticism has become a requirement for a pit crew job. Brown can understand why. He sees
plenty of parallels between changing tires and baseball or football, which he played for one season at
Davidson.
"My job's basically hand-eye coordination and speed, and there's a little bit of footwork around the car,"
Brown said. "I played shortstop at Davidson. Basically, there are a lot of similarities. Most of the guys
on our team played football, which I did for one year in college and all through high school. To me, what I
do is more like baseball. It's like a swing -- you've got a pattern where you hit five lug nuts. I think
baseball makes me better at this, I really do.
"There's rhythm within each guy's job, but also rhythm between the guys. In that respect, it's more like a
football play. If you're not at the right spot at the right time, even if you do it right, it's not going
to work. Everything's got to be on the money. When you look back at all the things that can go wrong and
mess you up, it's amazing any of them go right. That's why we practice all the time. It's muscle memory
over and over and over and over."
Brown is a specialist. For East Coast events, he comes to the track on race days only. If a race is west of
the Mississippi River, he'll travel to the host city the day before. Though he's in his fourth season as
Newman's front tire changer, he still knows very little about the mechanics of the car.
"I don't know anything about the car -- I'm really not allowed to touch it," he said with a chuckle. "I
change tires. That's my only job, and I better do it well, because I offer nothing else."
But what he does, he does exceedingly well, in a sport where tenths or hundredths of a second shaved off a
pit stop can mean positions gained on the racetrack. With all that's on the line during the 13 seconds he's
in action, Brown says it's essential to have a calm demeanor and a short memory.
"The biggest thing -- in the heat of the moment, when the TV cameras are all over you, 43 cars are on pit
road, people are getting run over, tires are all over the place -- is staying cool. It's chaos. It looks
like chaos from up above, especially. If you're out there out of control, or nervous, or your heart's
pumping too fast, you can't do it.
"You know you can get run over, but you don't think about it. You know chaos is all around you, but you've
got one job. Just do it, and if everybody else does (his), you'll be fine. I'd say the big thing is not
getting caught up in the moment and keeping a tempo, just like in practice.
"I change fronts, so the worst thing for me is brake dust. When (Newman) hits the brakes, the front's
taking most of the brake. A lot of times I'll hit the first nut, and there's a cloud of dust and I can't
see anything. So what do I do about that? Nothing. I just keep going.
"Things happen, but the minute it happens, you'd better forget about it -- because there might be 10 more
stops that night."
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