OXFORD — It didn’t take long for Dave Brown to realize something wasn’t right.

Trying to get a racing career launched at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway back in the late 1980s, his car wasn’t handling well.

“I could feel the car starting to fishtail,” he said. “You’ve really got to work with those wheels. I could hear the sound of everything screeching along. I was like, ‘What could that possibly be?'”

If Brown could hear it so clearly, he knew it wasn’t good. Brown is deaf.

“The next thing I know, I hear ‘Boom!’ Exploding tires,” he recalls. “It was so loud that even I heard it.”

He had no pit crew back then. He got some help putting the new tire on. He even cleared up the confusion of what happened. He conversed with another driver by writing in the dirt. Brown learned he had twice as much tire pressure than he needed.

“The communication was by writing in the dirt,” Brown said through an interpreter during a phone interview. “There were no interpreters there. So we’re writing in the dirt — scratch, scratch, scratch. I remember writing in the dirt and getting it all straightened out. You’d be amazed how much better control is in the car when the tire are weighted right.”

Brown has been racing ever since, with plenty more mistakes, accidents and successes along the way. Now he’s one of three local deaf drivers racing at Oxford Plains Speedway in the Wednesday night Acceleration Series. Brown, Kyle Curtis and Jonathan Baldwin all race in the Outlaw Division.

“To be able to help them and help teach them and show them where the pitfalls are, I was really happy to watch that,” said Brown, who grew up in Gray and now lives in Poland. “It was real rewarding to do it. It was a challenge. Previously, it had just been myself with the hearing people, which was a bit of a challenge to say the least. Now to have three drivers racing, we’re all in th same group, the same competition. It is a different experience than what I came up with.”

Brown was first involved with racing snowmobiles at age five. In his teens he was racing dirt bikes and motorcycles and having success. He started watching the racing at OPS and thought about taking his racing skills to the oval.

“I was at the Saturday events every Saturday for as long as I can remember,” he said.

By 1988, he was purchasing cars and looking into car racing. He was a little concerned about whether his lack of hearing might pose a problem. When he asked track officials, he was told that he should be fine.

“I was a little nervous being deaf and all,” he said. “I was worried that they’d give me a hard time and say ‘You can’t possibly do that.’ Personally, that’s what I thought would be the problem.

“But he was like, ‘That’s great. No problem. But first, most importantly, you’ve got to have a safe car. It’s got to pass inspection. Other than that, we couldn’t care less if you’re deaf.’ I was like, ‘Cool.'”

It took a little work to get the car up to standards. His mishap with the tire in his first race showed that he had a lot to learn. He had a wreck that soon followed when he lost control and hit the wall. He ran into trouble when, while being able to race, he realized he couldn’t miss three races in one season without being penalized — even though he had taken that time to improve his car. He raced and learned, and by 2003, he was having success.

“Looking back on all the mistakes, 2003 was a nice smooth year,” he said. “I had seven wins, which was really nice, and no wrecks, which was good.”

The economy and trouble finding sponsors has made racing a challenge in recent years, but the addition of two other deaf drivers has helped enhance the experience.

“I hadn’t experienced that before, but it was important to get that feedback and information,” said Brown.

Curtis, of Oxford,  began as a member of Brown’s pit crew. His grandmother brought him to races at OPS when he was a kid and loved watching them. He started working with Brown and Baldwin and decided to start racing himself last year.

“Mostly, he feels like he is hearing because they know him and they know he’s deaf,” said interpreter Kristen Brown, daughter of Dave Brown and Curtis’ girlfriend. “The only thing that’s challenging is the communication, but other than that, it’s pretty good.”

Baldwin’s father, Bruce, was involved in a pit crew for Saturday races and his son often came with friends to watch. He eventually got the urge to race and is now in his fourth year.

“It was lousy,” Baldwin said through Kristen Brown of his first year racing. “He kept spinning out, but in the third year he improved a lot because his dad’s friends helped him with the set up. Shannon Judd and Shane Greene helped him out.”

Both Baldwin and Curtis had top-five finishes last week. Curtis is 11th in the points standings. Baldwin and Brown are 33rd and 39th, respectively.

“This year he has improved a lot,” Kristen Brown said of Curtis. “There’s a big difference and points-wise there’s a big improvement.”

The biggest challenge for all of them has been adjusting to the racing and learning the ins and outs. It has rarely had anything to do with being deaf.

“It was nothing about being deaf,” Baldwin said. “It was just learning like a regular rookie — learning setup and driving and everything. Being deaf had absolutely no influence on it.”

One of the biggest challenges of being deaf is communication. Drivers need input from their crew and need to be able to express opinions and hear feedback from others. If you have a problem and need answers, you ask and listen.

“Usually it’s acting it out, pointing to a tire or doing signs, using visual gestures and pointing to specific things, and people will get the idea,” Curtis said.

The deaf drivers don’t hear how their car is performing, but can look at other facts that help them achieve the right ride.

“Usually he can look at key things like temperature and can tell if it is feeling fine just by sitting in it,” Curtis said through Kristen Brown. “He’ll look at different gauges, oil pressure and temperature.”

With three deaf drivers racing together, they’re able to work together and help each other out. That’s a benefit because finding help outside that circle can be challenging. The biggest adjustment for the deaf drivers is how the people around them adjust and deal with their situation.

“It’s not so much them approaching me, but it tends to be more me trying to find people who I can get information from who are open to dealing with me,” said Brown, whose daughter Kristen is fifth in points in the ladies division on Wednesday nights. “It’s more of a one- way interaction than a two-way interaction.”

As they’ve learned and gotten better results, it has made the experience that much better.

“It’s very exciting because there’s more interest (for me) in it now,” said Baldwin, who hopes to move up to the Saturday night racing eventually.

Brown is racing less frequently now because funds for an expensive hobby are limited in these tough economic times. He still loves racing and he likes being able to raise the awareness of deaf people and help create more understanding and interaction with the hearing.

“It’s been a real enjoyable experience,” said Brown. “For all my years and all my wrecks and all my mistakes, it been a good time.”

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