(WKRC) – NASCAR driver Brandon Brown is adopting the increasingly popular phrase, “Let’s go, Brandon,” and using it to decorate his race car.
Reports say he is singing a different tune now, after multiple media interviews in which he stressed that he has no desire to align himself politically.
After Brown won his first Xfinity Series, he was giving an interview with NBC when the crowd began reportedly chanting, “F*** Joe Biden.” The reporter suggested, however, that they were shouting, “Let’s go, Brandon,” which has now become code for the original chant.
NASCAR itself has denounced the expression. The organization’s president, Steve Phelps, said it has no desire to be affiliated with politics “on the left or the right.”
However, Brown’s new vehicle features an abbreviation of the phrase to promote a new cryptocurrency, LGBCoin.
The currency’s Twitter bio calls it “a meme coin inspiring patriotism.”
During an interview with Sports Business Journal, Brown said he was “unfortunately” dragged into having to choose a political stance, which resulted in sponsorship struggles.
“It got extremely difficult for us,” he said. “If you’re a national corporation, that means you sell to all consumers, and unfortunately, when you get dragged into the political arena, people want you to take a side. I’ve never been put in a position where it’s, ‘Okay, what side are you on, left or right?’ So it’s hard for a brand to want to attach to somebody who might be kind of divisive in their consumer base.”