Antron Brown explains how team ownership will redefine his success
The idea of team ownership for Antron Brown isn't about who owns what. It's about how much he can expand who will succeed as part of his team’s effort.
“This is the next step in my career," said Brown. And I ask myself, 'Who will be the next one to carry the torch?' To me back in the day Schumacher and Force were racers, and they took ownership on, you know what I mean? So that's the next step of evolution. If you want to control your own destiny, if you want to grow—you evolve. Or if you're comfortable, you just stay where you're at."
Team ownership is not just about success, it's also about responsibility and contribution. Brown said, "It comes with a big toll, but I know where I want to be, I know where I want to go." So to keep growing and moving forward, team ownership is part of Brown's evolution of successes beyond just e.t. and miles-per hour. He's thinking bigger than that.
"You want to think about what you want to leave behind one day. I learned from my peers and mentors, ‘Don't just be like me. Be better than me. Don't just be great. Be the greatest of who you can be.’ And that's why I challenged myself each and every day, and why I want to surround myself with the best people to push me and we can go there together.
“AB Motorsports is gonna be a family environment. From Brian Corradi, to Mark Oswald, to Brad Mason and the rest of the whole crew—we're all doing this together. It's not me, it's all of us together. I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't have the right people with me. And it's not me doing it, it's all of us together. It's our chemistry. I feel that we're unleashing ourselves so we can control our own destiny. This road is not going to be easy, it's actually going to be hard because of what we expect out of ourselves. But we have nobody to blame but ourselves.
For Brown, team ownership isn't about him taking more, it's about his willingness to make a larger contribution.
"You open up doors where there is more opportunity for other people to expand and grow. And also to help expand our sport to grow. I’m at a point where I can bring people in and grow them and actually open up the doors, and give them opportunities in motorsports. We don't want to stay as a single-car team, we want to expand to be a two-car team, maybe one day be a three- or four-car team. But no bigger than that.
"One day, I won't be driving anymore. That's way down the road. But I want to be able to have people that I’ve helped nurture and grow. Someone who went from working on our team to driving a car as I did. And that's what our whole structure will be about. It's gonna be pushing people to be the best version of themselves.
I don’t want to hear anybody on my team say ‘I can’t.’ I want them to say ‘I will,’ and ‘I can’ and that's the mindset we’ll be pushing.