Brownstown Bullring
Brennan goes solo to kick off Summer Nationals
By Todd Turner
DirtonDirt.com managing editor
Todd Brennan at the Brownstown Bullring. (DirtonDirt)
BROWNSTOWN, Ill. (June 9) — The DIRTcar Summer Nationals are tough enough on drivers unaccustomed to following the grueling, day-after-day circuit. The unfamiliar racetracks. The scorching heat. The relentless competition.
Todd Brennan of Zanesville, Ohio, is adding another challenge on the Brownstown Bullring’s opening night of a two-week stretch on the circuit: he’s going at it all alone. | RaceWire
“This is dumb,” he told a reporter walking up to assess the situation.
A couple of crew members, Norman Shively and Josh Pensis, will head from Ohio to join Brennan for the second round of the tour Wednesday at Kankakee County Speedway, but at the quarter-mile Fayette County Fairgrounds oval, Brennan will serve as his own crew.
"They just couldn't come the first day (and) I said, 'I'm going regardless,' and they're like, 'No, you can’t.'I said, 'I'm going,'" Brennan related. "My wife was like, 'There's no way.' I just sent her a picture. I said, 'Got it unloaded by myself.’ That's part of the battle.”
While the 45-year-old Brennan was indeed unloaded and preparing for Tuesday’s $5,000-to-win opener, his No. 20 Rocket Chassis was nosed into the pit stall amid most teams that back their race cars in front of the transporter.
“I just gotta drive it in, I ain't got nobody to back me in, no nothing,” said Brennan, who operates a 16-truck heavy duty commercial trucking operation, B&H Towing. “I’ve been pretty blessed with a good group of guys that help me. I typically have three most nights, or four guys full-time at all the local and regional stuff, but they work for a living, so it's hard. Next week I'll have the full crew, because that was already planned and they took vacations.
“This week I kind of just threw on and added. You know, as a small business owner and stuff, we've got the flexibility to take off where most normal people can't just say, ‘Hey, I'm leaving.’
"Obviously I’ve gotta be a little more conservative today on how I drive because I can't knock the deck out and stuff knowing that I ain't got nobody here to help me fix it. So I’ve gotta be a little smarter today and probably won't make as many adjustments as we normally would just because you're limited,” he said. “Our hope is I get her pretty close out of the box and we're gonna be pretty good. We'll find out here a couple of hours.”
While Brennan doesn’t have any official crew members, his brother Jason Brennan is competing in the modified division, and he’s got his wife Courtney and daughter Autumn along who can give Brennan a hand in a pinch.
While the Summer Nationals typically has a few late-tour races in Ohio, Brennan has only competed on the circuit a handful of times with a best finish of sixth in 2024 at Wayne County Speedway in Orrville, Ohio.
He decided to get out of his comfort zone of Ohio to run a dozen or so races starting this year's tour, in part because he’d eventually like to make a full-season run on the circuit someday, and in part because so many rainouts at his regular tracks have stalled his efforts in DIRTcar weekly points.
Wayne County’s Saturday events have suffered eight consecutive rainouts and Brennan's Friday night track, Attica (Ohio) Raceway Park, has had just two points races.
“It's crazy to be the second race and it's the midseason championship, but everything has just got rained out over and over,” he said.
Brennan has averaged 10 feature victories over the last three seasons, but he’s got a single victory so far in 2026 and needs to add more races to be competitive in DIRTcar points, which tally a driver’s best 35 performances.
“With all these rainouts, it's gonna be tough to get to 35 again just because the beginning of the year — especially in our region — it's been rainout after rainout after rainout. So I’ve just come out, play a little bit,” Brennan said. "It's one of them deals that, at some point, I wanna do the whole thing. So I figured easiest way is just come out and get my feet wet, but I can assure you when we go do that, we'll be more prepared.”
Brennan actually dipped his toe in the Summer Nationals waters in 2023, hauling to Davenport (Iowa) Speedway with plans to run a handful of events. It did not go well.
"It was a few years ago when we got caught up on a deal in the first lap,” Brennan recalled. “We were going to play a little bit and the cars stacked up and I got whoa'd up and a guy hit me in the right front, bent the right-front tower on the first night — so we tucked tail and went home.
“At that time I had a brand new car that had never been on the track with me, and after basically making one lap and bending one, I was like, ‘Eh, how about we just do this another time.’ ”
Another time is now and Brennan will be facing some of the best drivers in Illinois and beyond over a stretch of races at tracks he’s never seen — with the exception of Davenport. A few buddy drivers in the pits — and former multitime Summer Nationals champions — Brian Shirley of Chatham, Ill., and Shannon Babb of Moweaqua, Ill., have given Brennan a primer on upcoming tracks.
“I called Shannon this morning and talked a little bit,” Brennan said. “I really like Shannon and was just trying to get a few pointers here and there just to get us in the ballpark, especially knowing the day that we're really short on help that I've got to get (the suspension setup) pretty close to start because that's kind of what I'm gonna have for the day.”
The good news is, as the seventh-place finisher in DIRTcar points last season, Brennan is a likely candidate for provisional starting spots if he has a rough night.
“So I was kind of using this as my time to come out here and get my feet wet and see what we got, and if we do need a provisional, more than likely we'll have one,” he said. “I'm hoping we don't need any of those, but just knowing that we do kind of make us feel a little better making the trip out and learning a little bit. But I don't know. I guess we'll see. We'll find out pretty quick.”
He decided to start the Summer Nationals with his oldest of four cars, a 2022 Rocket XR1 that has a solid pedigree with 49 victories among 232 starts.
“This is one of the old cars we're gonna maybe play with tonight and then see how the night goes because we might get one of the new XR2s out tomorrow,” he said. The older car is a “testament of how good Rocket Chassis are.
“There’s just something about this old car that I really like. I've never really kept a car this long. Typically we just alternate them with new ones,” he added. “There's something weird about it. It just does so good. It's ugly as crap, and the other cars, we keep really nice … it’s so ugly because there's no powdercoat left most places on the frame and all that stuff. We don't even replace the body panels that much. I'm like, ‘To heck with it,’ it’s ugly anyway.”
The Brennan will fold up his 6-foot-5 body Tuesday evening to climb in the car — “It’s not pretty,” he said — and begin his Summer Nationals run. Climbing aboard is a little easier now that he’s 40 pounds lighter after losing some of the bulk from his workout days that are behind him. He is reminded of middle-age, however, on occasions like a recent event at Moler Raceway Park in Williamsburg, Ohio, in high-speed conditions.
“It was just up on the wheel the whole time and I was like, ‘Holy crap, my age is getting me.’ So, I don't know how many more years I've got doing this. At some point we're gonna do a team owner deal and put one of these young guys to driving at some point here in the future,” he said. “We'll see how time goes, because my end goal is I want to do a national tour. It'll never be with me. It'll be with a driver. My goal is maybe get to 50 here. Play until we're 50 and then get us a young guy in there. I'm past my prime, you know what I mean? But I was one of those guys that didn't (start) a whole lot, so I had to work my whole life to finally have the stuff and then unfortunately by then I was old.”
For now, he’s setting his sights on a successful Summer Nationals performance through June 21’s action at Lincoln (Ill.) Speedway. It’s a stretch that, barring rainouts, means racing every night at tracks in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri.
“I’m hoping we have a good little run out here and surprise a few people, but it's just hard when you show up to racetracks you haven't been to,” Brennan said. “I know we've got some speed, but being able to translate that to places you've never been, it's just something we're gonna find out.”
