Landon Brown Impresses in ARCA Debut at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway

The debut is officially in the books — and what a night it was.

Music City 150 at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway marked the first-ever ARCA start for Landon Brown and his first race in any full-size stock car. While the final result was not what we ultimately hoped for, the performance, speed, and momentum gained throughout the evening made it an overwhelmingly successful debut for our program.

For the last three years, Landon has raced a Kenyon Midget — a car weighing approximately 900 pounds with around 150 horsepower. Transitioning into an ARCA car is a massive leap by comparison, with over 650 horsepower and a race weight of roughly 3,400 pounds. Beyond the sheer difference in speed and power, the driving style, braking, racecraft, visibility, tire management, and traffic dynamics are completely different.

Although Landon previously completed a test day in an older-generation NASCAR chassis and later tested the current ARCA car at Kansas Speedway, Nashville marked his first true competition in the car.

Right from the start, the team at Kimmel Racing provided Landon with an exceptionally fast and well-handling race car. From there, the focus quickly became learning the racetrack, understanding traffic, and adapting to the intensity of stock car racing in a highly competitive field.

With outstanding coaching and support from Will Kimmel, Bill Kimmel, and spotter Eric “Nacho” Roll, Landon improved nearly every lap he turned.

A strong field of 21 cars entered for the event, and coming into the weekend, expectations were largely unknown. Internally, we felt that a solid mid-pack performance would be a great accomplishment for a first outing.

Instead, Landon exceeded every expectation.

Practice speeds continually improved throughout the evening, eventually placing the team inside the top 10 on the speed charts. Then came qualifying.

Landon delivered a fantastic qualifying run, placing the No. 69 machine 6th overall in the starting lineup and immediately establishing himself as one of the surprises of the night.

After a brief rain delay, it was finally time to race.

The opening stages of the event were all about learning and patience. Landon settled into 7th position early and spent the first portion of the race gaining experience while continuing to improve his pace in traffic. As the laps clicked away, his confidence and speed noticeably increased.

Following a couple of cautions near the halfway point, Landon was running 8th before making a clean pass back into 7th and beginning to pressure the cars ahead. Lap after lap, he closed the gap to the front runners, and by the halfway break he had reeled in the 5th- and 6th-place cars while actually running faster lap times than the 4th-place machine.

Everything was shaping up for what looked to be a potential top-five finish in his ARCA debut.

The halfway break featured a five-minute controlled pit stop, where the team changed tires and serviced the car. The stop went smoothly overall, although the crew also had to repair a damaged bracket caused by slight contact with the frontstretch wall during a restart.

With the repairs completed, Landon pulled away to line up for the restart.

Then disaster struck.

While driving down the backstretch under caution, the car suddenly lost all electrical power. Track safety crews attempted to bump-start the car, but it would not refire. Once the car was pushed back to pit road, the team quickly replaced the battery, which briefly restored power before the issue immediately returned.

After several laps spent diagnosing the failure, the difficult decision was made to retire for the evening.

The official finishing result certainly did not reflect the performance of the team or driver that night, but the gains made throughout the event were far greater than any finishing position.

Landon proved he could race competitively in traffic under full race conditions. The car showed race-winning speed. National television coverage from Phil Parsons and the FS1 broadcast team brought tremendous exposure to the program. Most importantly, ARCA officials were extremely impressed both on and off the racetrack and officially approved Landon to compete at every track on the ARCA schedule moving forward — a major milestone for any developing driver.

That approval alone represents a huge step forward for our future.

We also cannot thank our friends and family enough for making the trip to Nashville and supporting us throughout the weekend. Seeing that support in person made the night incredibly special.

A huge thank you also goes out to our supporters at Lentini Auto Detail and Jeff Hill Trailer Sales for believing in our program and helping make this opportunity possible.

The night may not have ended the way we hoped, but the momentum surrounding this team is very real and continues to build rapidly.

This was only the beginning.

We are excited for the next races ahead and look forward to partnering with businesses that want to join us on this journey as we continue climbing to the next level of stock car racing.