Brandon Brown spoke for himself after he noticed that I had barely thrown up into my mask.
We were on the third loop of the track at Dominion Raceway, which is just a few yards east of I-95 in central Virginia. After a couple of gentle loops, Mr. Brown steered us up a short, sloped track and into a sharp left at 70 miles an hour.
He said that he normally goes up to 200 m.p.h. Keeping a lot of control and staying as smooth as possible is what the trick is. You can ruin a lot of days if you start thinking about other things.
Mr. Brown could talk about this stuff forever, and nothing else. He has been racing go-karts for 20 years and will happily explain the nuances of the sport to anyone who will listen. He has been losing sleep ever since he was thrown into the middle of the political fight in this country.
The original Brandon is the guy in the anti-Biden rally cry.
He experienced the greatest thrill in his life when he raced to his first-ever NASCAR victory at the Talladega Superspeedway. Mr. Brown shouted, "This is a dream come true!" as he stood before an NBC Sports Network camera. Wow! It's Talladega! We did it!
A group of people in the stands started chanting the name of President Biden as the interview continued, and it was clear from the broadcast that it was audible.
The reporter tried to stay on message and cover up what was being said as the crowd chanted, "Let's go, Brandon!"
The moment was pretty funny, but also a sign of the way in which the news media ignores their views.
A slogan was born with the chant. There were flags and yard signs all over the country. The congressman intoned "Let's Go, Brandon" while the governor referred to the Brandon administration.
Mr. Brown was basking in his win when he wasn't listening to the crowd. He first noticed that he had become a meme when he looked at his followers on the social networking site, which he mostly uses for his NASCAR musings.
He thought it was funny, and a couple of days later he posted the phrase, "*not political... just feelin myself." He tried a different line the next week: "To all the other Brandon's out there, you're welcome!" Let us go.
The American right slogan doesn't turn out to be something you can easily shake off. Mr. Brown is facing a threat to his vocation because he is an athlete on the verge of breaking out in a sport that relies on corporate sponsors.
Mr. Brown said that everybody is a consumer and that's why he wanted to appeal to everybody. I don't want to be involved in politics.
He reached out to me through a spokesman for his team because he realized that waiting out the storm wasn't working. His silence on the matter seemed to be a political statement, as his name took on a new meaning. Politics can make it difficult for athletes to make money.
Mr. Brown is not part of a famous racing family or a star driver hired by a well-funded team for his raw talent, which is unusual on the NASCAR circuit. He has been racing with his father since he was in high school, and he is simply an obsessive who loves to go fast.
He put in roughly a dozen races a year while he was a college student studying marketing, and he and his team, Brandonbilt Motorsports, went full-throttle starting in 2019. He drove in 33 races in NASCAR in the year 2021. He is the marketing director of Brandonbilt Motorsports.
He had a career crisis this summer. He was not getting enough sponsorship money to keep going. His father told him it was time to end the Brandonbilt team.
He responded by posting a video on the social networking site that showed him making a used-car-salesman-style pitch for himself while standing in front of his Chevrolet Camaro with a giant For Sale sign draped across the hood.
He yelled, "I'm bringing the deal to you!" You could sponsor my rear end.
Miraculously, it worked. Larry's Lemonade and a company called Trade the Chain are sponsors. Their logos were on his car when he won.
He told me that he had to thank his sponsors. You want to make sure that they are in the spotlight.
A big victory would have drawn more sponsors. Brandon was the one who came out of Talladega.
John McWhorter, a trained linguist, wrote an essay about the American practice of hlonipha, in which an innocuous word or phrase is replaced for something else. Mr. McWhorter wrote that "Let's Go, Brandon!" is an "in-group salute" for Republicans.
That didn't sit well with Mr. Brown. He doesn't want it to just be the substitute for a curse. He said that if it is making it more polite, then go ahead.
He has a problem with what NASCAR is doing. Roy Furchgott wrote recently in The New York Times that the car racing association has a challenge in appealing to a new audience without alienating an old one. NASCAR is trying to appeal to a younger and more diverse new generation of fans and to hold on as a cultural hub of the conservative white South. A group of race fans protested NASCAR's ban of Confederate flags from its events by convoying with them outside the speedway.
Mr. Brown said that he wanted to use the win to move up, because it was supposed to be a celebration. I had to stay more silent because everyone wanted it to go to the political side. I am interested in the racing side.
Mr. Brown was very passionate as he explained the basics of the Xfinity Series, which is similar to the highest rung of minor-league baseball, and why it's important to conserve gas. We sat at a picnic table by the Raceway after the drive. I started asking him about politics.
Mr. Brown was trying to make sure he spoke carefully. He said he is a Republican. He would like to encourage others to vote, but he doesn't want to say who he voted for.
Did he think we should curse at Joe Biden?
He said that he doesn't know enough about politics to form a true opinion, so he focuses on racing.
He said he was trying to think of a way to make the song positive.
If they use my name, I want it to be productive.
Mr. Brown brought up the subject of rising gas prices, which was obvious to him.
He said that inflation affects everyone and that is a big reason for it. It doesn't matter where you vote, it's which way you look or what you believe in. Groceries go up. Fuel goes up. It is things that I share frustration with everyone. So if they use my name and we have the same issues?
He wrote an op-ed piece that will be published in Newsweek on Monday, in which he describes his fear of being canceled by association. He suggests a new slogan: "Let's Go, America!"
I like to ask awkward questions, and I am usually a pretty aggressive interviewer. I could relate to Mr. Brown's comment that he loved every minute of it.
I think he would have sat there with me by the track for quite a while more if he had thought about what he was saying.
We never got that far. It didn't seem fair. I thought I would prefer to live in a country that allowed racecar drivers, actors and musicians to avoid being grilled by people like me, and I left.
