Brownstown Speedway
Notes: Rice falls shy but happy for Shirley's win
By Bryan Ault
Special to DirtonDirt
Josh Rice chases Jackson 100 winner Brian Shirley. (heathlawsonphotos.com)
BROWNSTOWN, Ind. (Sept. 26) — Josh Rice felt he let one slip away Saturday at Brownstown Speedway.
At the 47th annual Jackson 100, the Crittenden, Ky. driver felt he had the car to win, but circumstances — tire selection, a late caution, and letting Kyle Bronson slip by during his heat race — all contributed to his runner-up finish behind $56,000 winner Brian Shirley. If just one of those circumstances doesn’t happen, the hard-charging, JRR Motorsports pedal-smasher and Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series rookie thinks the race could have gone his way. | RaceWire
“Damn, rookie season to win two crown jewels, would have been awesome,” said Rice, who won last month’s Sunoco North-South 100 at Florence Speedway in Union, Ky. “And I feel like that would been a really good add-on for our rookie season. I wanted that one bad, but I know Shirley did, too, and it was cool to see him win.”
Rice even surprised himself in the race’s later laps, not realizing Shirley, who earned his first Lucas Oil victory, was leading the race.
“I really didn't even know that Shirley was in the lead,” Rice said. “I knew that he had passed me early, so I'm like, s--- … I feel like I fell back further than I did, I guess. And then I got to Shirley there, and then I looked over down to the frontstretch one time and saw he was in the lead. I was like, oh, s---, I am racing for the lead.”
To fans watching on FloRacing or maybe even at the track, Rice seemed to appear out of nowhere, but he was simply biding his time and waiting for his chance to pounce. Shirley and Frank Heckenast Jr. were pinned behind lapped cars, allowing the Bluegrass State driver to advance from to third from fifth between laps 73-76 and close on Shirley.
The deciding factor was the caution for Derek Groomer’s right-rear flat tire on lap 86, stunting momentum and cooling off his tires.
“If it stays green, I feel like it's the reason I win the race because lap 75 or 80 there, all of a sudden I could just turn like you couldn't believe,” Rice said. “I think it hurt me, because I just got to where I wasn't having to use my feet so much to steer. I was having to use so much. I had to just bend it and then try to catch it in the middle and point straight. That’s just part of it. Shirley did a really good job. That place races so good for as bottom-dominant as it is. Like, you step out and miss it, three or four cars are go by, and they said (third-place finisher) Max (Blair) was there the whole time, and I guess I did a good enough job.”
Another of Rice’s regrets was not making any adjustments to his car after qualifying, where he set fast time despite being one of the last cars to turn laps at the quarter-mile oval. If Rice would have captured his heat race over Bronson, he would’ve started on the front row instead of sixth.
“I got qualified and I didn’t feel good, but I fast-timed,” Rice said. “So I'm like, ‘I guess I'll just leave the car alone,’ but I felt too free, and I went out here, but just could not hit the bottom. I could hear Bronson under me. And every time I tried to hit that bottom, I just got worse and worse. I didn't even realize I could have been right around the top the whole time.”
Despite the disappointment, Rice was happy for Shirley. The two have often bantered as they’ve battled for seventh and eighth in the series standings, week in and week out on the road.
“If I'm going to lose to anybody, it would be him,” Rice said. “We went back and forth so much where we're at points. And like, I have a good night and he wins the damn thing. But it's cool.”
New promoter’s wish list
Change is coming to Brownstown. With Jim Price stepping down as promoter after 13 seasons, the track has a verbal commitment from a new promoter to kick off 2027: hometowner Mike Knight
And the 41-year-old former driver, who spent time in the modified ranks, is excited about how he can leave his own lasting impact at the quarter-mile oval.
“I would like to leave it better than what I take it over as,” Knight said. “I'd like to walk away and say, ‘I left that,’ and my grandkids and my kids would say, ‘Well, dad did that.’ I'd like to have that at the end of the day.”
Knight will oversee a time of significant improvements to the facilities, which have looked the same for decades. The highest priority is giving the famous covered grandstands, which have been around since the track’s inception in the 1950s, a long overdue overhaul. Following the Jackson 100 next season, demolition of the current grandstands will commence with the new version raised up by the Jackson County Fair in July 2028.
Knight’s interest in racing developed when his brother decided to buy a super stock. Knight bought a modified and raced for a few seasons before shifting his efforts to help Price, who took him under his wing.
Knight moved to the area from Trafalgar, Ind., in 2018, and owns his own farm drainage business in Brownstown. Along with the grandstands, he has several other projects in mind, notably more seating on the backstretch, a new pit shack, and a new office for track employees. A big item on his wish list is being able to install gravel in the pit area.
Changes to the surface, though, are not going to happen, so fans needn’t worry about the higher banks and faster speeds slowing down anytime soon. The goal is to make the facilities match the track that fans flock to see, especially during major events like the Jackson 100 and March’s Indiana Icebreaker.
His heart is also with Brownstown’s local racers who come to the track every weekend.
“I understand where you're coming at from the standpoint of the racer,” Knight said. “I understand that the racers are coming here and this is their everything they have during the summer. This is what they do from Monday to Saturday. This is what their life depends on, especially the guys that come here and race every weekend. This is their night. Saturday night is their night.”
Curry’s last laps
On any given weekend at Brownstown, 83-year-old Jim Curry can be seen either riding around in a golf cart or standing unnoticed by younger fans behind the grandstands off turn one, holding a beer in his right hand while resting his elbow on the wooden bleachers. A space between fans gives the bespectacled former driver a line of sight to watch a track he’s circled countless times.
Add up the number of laps the Lucas Oil Series heavy hitters have made at the Jackson County Fairgrounds oval in their lifetimes and it’s still unlikely to ever top Curry. On Saturday, a group from Brownstown Central High School, led by Curry's grandson and shop teacher Jamey Wilson, honored the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Famer by bringing a restored version of his 1988 UMP title-winning car to the track for display.
On Saturday afternoon, Curry stood by the car, which has 33 UMP stickers on the hood symbolizing each victory in 1988, near the turn-one restrooms on the grounds, greeting fans and taking time to speak with everyone. Curry carried the flag for the national anthem, but engine problems off turn three caused him to stall.
Still, he was happy for his grandson and proud of the high school students for restoring a car that he piloted for countless laps.
“It's pretty great deal, really,” Curry said Saturday afternoon. “That's the fastest car I ever drove. It hooked up so tight down straightaways on a slick racetrack that I could feel the car vibrating.”
Curry, a native of nearby Norman, Ind., is a legend at the historic quarter-mile oval. The four-time Brownstown track champion was a three-time Jackson 100 winner (1988, ’98 and ’03), tying him for second on the all-time list.
Curry’s victory in 2003 is noteworthy. At the age of 60, he outran fellow three-time race winner Don O’Neal, Bob Pierce, C.J. Rayburn, Darrell Lanigan, and current racers Dennis Erb Jr. and Mike Marlar.
“There could have been five or six more (Jackson 100s),” Curry said. “But racing stuff happened, you know? They put me in the Hall of Fame the next weekend, so I was about done and satisfied. First time I ever been satisfied in my life, probably with racing. You know, in all the years I raced, I never realized I'd ever be something like that.”
Wilson, an assistant coach for the school’s top-ranked football team who has turned laps around the oval himself in several different divisions, found the car while attempting to make T-shirts three years ago. He learned a local Jackson County resident owned the car, so he purchased it as a shop project for his students.
“It took me a while to convince him to sell it to me, but once he agreed, then I took grandpa up and I had him check it out and confirm that it was his car and there was some trademarks under there that he and (Curry’s son) Jimmy had made special about this car,” Wilson said. “He knew it was the right car. So, we got it and just started slowly redoing it.”
Wilson’s class made the overhaul a three-year project. They would tinker on it during downtime when there were no other cars available to work with. With the Jackson 100 approaching, though, the school’s current students kicked their efforts into a higher gear.
“Probably March, I decided that we should probably get it done and get it out of there to free up space because we were getting busy enough with cars that they would actually work on,” Wilson said. “They loved it. I took my sheetmetal breaker from home and they broke all the metal to build the body. They did all the bead rolling for everything. Fuel cell didn't have a mount, so they welded up a mount for it and built that.”
Curry marvels at what the track and Dirt Late Model racing has become in more recent times. The way drivers wheel the modern machines amazes Curry.
“Way more expensive,” Curry said. “The race cars look to me like they are easier to drive than they used to be. We was either fighting a push, or loose. They don't seem like they ever get loose. They just drive that son of a bitch in there so wide open and go around the corner.”
Curry tested the MasterSbilt Race Cars house car during a practice last season, and believed those would be the final laps of his career. Saturday’s opportunity with Wilson’s work, though, were the last time he plans to make circles.
He did say, with an elderly laugh, that those pace laps might be the longest in the quarter-mile oval’s history. Even though he couldn’t lead the field to green as he planned, he was still happy that his grandson pioneered the project.
“I'm just pretty proud of the car,” Curry said. “I'm just proud that we found it, and Jamey got a hold of it and how it looks like it does today. A lot of hard work went into it. There’s a lot straighter panels on it than it had when I was racing it.”
