Young sprintcar driver goes 'back to zero' in bid to succeed in new class

Sydney's Kaidon Brown, who took out the 2017-18 Australian Speedcar Championship, has his eyes set on both titles (speedcar and sprintcars) in 2024.

He will vie for the Australian Sprintcar Championship at Allansford's Premier Speedway on January 26 and 27 before heading to Perth in March for the national speedcar titles.

"I've done quite a few (Australian titles) in the (speedcar), I got to win one when I was 18 years old," Brown told The Standard. "I was the youngest ever to win it in the other car."

Speedcars are Brown's "forte" - after starting in the class at 16 - with the now 23-year-old firmly in the "deep end" with sprintcars after teaming up with Dickson Motorsport last season to run its V3.

He described the transition from a speedcar to the sprintcar as "tough".

"The cars are a lot different," he said. "Pretty much from what I've known, it's the complete opposite.

"The wing and the air - it's wicked how crazy it is and how it affects the car."

Despite the steep learning curve and limited race meetings under his belt this summer, Brown is starting to make his presence known.

"We haven't raced as much as we'd want to (this season) - waiting for a new truck to get built and (our) chassis' to come from the US," he said.

"We're kind of down on experience but we're going pretty well."

Brown was unlucky to miss out on a spot in Sunday night's Flying Horse Bar and Brewery Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic A-Main feature after starting on pole and later sitting third in a transfer spot in his B-Main before crashing out.

He enjoyed a solid preliminary run on Friday night, setting a 11.307 in his time trial, taking out heat four and finishing 10th in the A-Main to book his spot in January 21's B-Main.

"We're a long way further from where we were last year," he said. "Hopefully we can continue on."

It was Brown's second appearance at the classic after teaming up with Domain Ramsey to run a car in 2023, where his finished a few places shy of an A-Main appearance on the Sunday.

Brown will jet back to Sydney for university commitments - he is in his fourth and final year of physiotherapy at Western Sydney University - this week before returning for the Australian Sprintcar Championship in Victoria.

Racing, university and a part-time job as a bartender is a lot to fit in for the 23-year-old and he credits the Dickson Motorsport team and his own family's speedcar team for their support to make it work.

"They've all really set me up to succeed in the sport," he said.

Brown, who is a fourth generation speedcar driver, follows in the footsteps of his father Mark, who he continues to lean on for driving advice.

"My dad was a pretty good speedcar driver, he did it for 30 years," he said. "My family put all their funds together, bought me my first ever speedcar."

The sport has taken him across to the US, where he hired by Toyota and Nascar driver Christopher Bell in 2022 to run some speedcars and micro sprints.

Last month, Brown took out the Victorian speedcar title as he continues to split his time between both cars.

Brown said he and Dickson family had "hit it off" since they first contacted him to race their sprintcar.

"I'm really good friends with the crew chief (Jacob), who is the son of the owner, and they asked if I wanted to run a sprintcar," he said.

The team has made several changes from its first season to its second.

"Last year, we're were based up in NSW, at Eastern Creek," Brown said. "We were running what was called a J&J Chassis but now we've changed to a XXX.

"We've kind of gone in a different direction which is a tiny bit different to drive but here and Avalon, we're based out of now, the team live and are based out of Geelong so they're our local tracks."

Brown is 100 per cent committed to succeeding in a sprintcar as he works to build himself from the ground up.

"Obviously it was tough learning the speedcar, we put in a lot of work and it kind of all paid off and we started winning some races," he said.

"It's kind of like we've gone back to zero again (with the sprintcar)."

While Dickson Motorsport has been around from some time, Brown and his crew team are all relatively newcomers to the sport, with crew chief Jacob 21 himself.

"We've got a couple mates who are new to it, learning tyres and how to do things to the car, I'm new to it," Brown said.

"We're a really new team, we've been together last year and the start of this year (and) we're doing really well with how tough the competition is at the moment, with all Australia's best, all America's best.

"We'll keep moving upwards and we're getting better every time we hit the track so that's the main thing."