BRISTOL, Tenn. — A malfunctioning rear-view mirror, a brake fan fire and a poor final pit stop proved to be no match for Chase Briscoe.
The Stewart-Haas Racing driver advanced to the Round of 12 of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs with an eighth-place finish in Saturday’s (Sept. 21) Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Things looked dire for the No. 14 at the start of the playoffs. An early crash with Kyle Larson at Atlanta Motor Speedway saddled Briscoe with a last-place finish. But Briscoe capitalized on the struggles of playoff drivers at Watkins Glen International with a sixth-place finished and a 43-point day that gave him a six-point advantage heading into Bristol.
Briscoe started the weekend with promise by qualifying fifth and he was fast from the drop of the green flag. But it didn’t take long for the No. 14 to face the first hurdle of the night as Briscoe’s rear-view camera stopped working on lap 88.
“It’s tough just with this car, you get so used to [the camera] where you can just look at it, you can clear yourself,” Briscoe said. “Of all the tracks, this is one of the hardest ones to not have it, just with how you turn down on exit. Guys have always been tight.
“I was probably more worried about that than anything just when it happened. But after I got used to it for 100 or so laps, it kind of became natural.”
The next hurdle for Briscoe’s car came in the form of brake fans. A small fire started when he turned them on for the first time.
“It definitely seemed like everything that could go wrong kind of went wrong,” Briscoe said. “When the thing started smoking, I thought our day was done. I turned the brake fans on, and I think it started a fire in the front.
“Fortunately, it went out as soon as I turned the fans off, but that could have been disastrous.”
With the fire gone, Briscoe capitalized with seven stage points. He ran inside the top three and battled Martin Truex Jr. and Denny Hamlin for second place in the final stage when Corey LaJoie’s crash set up the final round of pit stops on lap 333.
Disaster struck, as difficulties with changing the right-front tire cost Briscoe more than 10 spots. At that point, the live point standings showed him below the cut.
“It’s obviously unfortunate when you have bad pit stops, and that was something that tonight we kind of struggled with,” Briscoe said. “I think we lost spots every single time.”
But what Briscoe excelled at was restarts. He quickly made up the lost ground in a race where passing was difficult and track position was at a premium.
“For us, our restarts and just my car was really, really good,” Briscoe said. “So that one, I went from 14th to fifth or something like that, and what saved our race tonight was our restarts.”
Briscoe ultimately fell to eighth by the end of the 500-lap race, but his finish, combined with speeding penalties for Truex and Ty Gibbs, was more than enough to send him on to the second round.
It was a nail-biting three weeks for Briscoe, but he exuded confidence in his and SHR’s abilities after Bristol. It’s the last dance with the team he’s called home for the last six years and he has his eyes set on a much bigger prize: the championship.
“I don’t think anybody believes this, but I really think we can battle for the championship,” Briscoe said. “And I think these last two weeks show that.
“I mean, we gave [the field] a race. We went to Atlanta, had one point and tonight we had a lot of adversity and we were better than eighth place at the end, just trying not to crash myself or do anything stupid.”
After scoring just one top-10 finish from Memorial Day to the end of August, Briscoe now has a win and three tops 10s in his last four starts and all the momentum in the world heading into next Sunday’s (Sept. 29) Round of 12 opener at Kansas Speedway.
“We brought top five racecars the last three weeks, four weeks if you count Darlington, and we’re hitting our stride at the right time,” Briscoe said. “And with this format, if you can just be good for 10 weeks, then you can be a champion, and I feel like we’re as strong as any team right now.
“Even tonight, if I ever just got to the front row, I felt like I was good enough to run with Kyle [Larson].
“Proud of the effort. Just got some stuff we have to clean up for sure. But if we do that and we execute from start to finish, I feel like we’re as strong as anybody.”
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Can find on Twitter @stephen_stumpf.
mmm as good as anybody !!! then take hamlin out early next week and increase your odds.