June 5, 2022 | By Lee Spencer

Don't blame Chase Briscoe; the guy just wants to win

MADISON, Ill.—Don’t expect Chase Briscoe to be an apologist for trying to win a race. 

If the third-generation dirt-tracker sees an opportunity to take the lead and win—he'll take it.  

And with 11 different winners in the first 14 races of the NASCAR Cup Series season, victories are at a premium when sizing up the Playoff grid.

“You’ve got to try to win—and especially now with how the format is,” Briscoe said. “It’s not that points don't matter, but you know in the Playoffs you are guaranteed in if you have two wins. So wins, that's just how the new format is, wins mean a lot. So for us, yeah, if you get an opportunity to try and win a race, you’ve got to try to win the race. It's what I'm paid to do. 

“That's what the whole goal of the race is. We don't just ride around there to say, ‘Hey, if we're here, let’s try and finish second.’ You race to try and win the race. I think with how everything is you've got to go for it. Obviously, I need to not wreck myself while going for it.”

But twice in the last six races, Briscoe has been sniffing the lead in the closing laps and ultimately changed the outcome of the race.

The decision worked poorly for Briscoe at the Bristol Dirt Race in April. He collided with race leader Tyler Reddick in the final corner, opening the door for Kyle Busch to steal the win. Although Reddick recovered for a second-place finish, Briscoe cratered to 22nd. 

Last Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Briscoe was racing Kyle Larson for the lead on the next-to-last lap of regulation when he spun out of Turn 2. Larson, who had battled from being a lap down, was looking for his second win of the season, only to have his progress slowed by the 17th caution of the Coca Cola 600. Larson was wiped out when the race restarted. Briscoe claimed a fourth-place finish—his third top-five result of 2022.

“I wish I would have just taken (second) and kind of dealt with it,” Briscoe said. “But, yeah, it was just different. Circumstances, like Bristol, you got there in the one lap. You had to try something. You did all that work just to get there. And then at Charlotte, I kept working him over. I was just trying to be at his left rear tire by the time I got to the exit. 

“Looking back now, I was way farther up to his door than I ever was any other lap that race, and I think just the aero spun me out. It was odd how Bristol and Charlotte looked the same, but the intent and the move was totally different. At Charlotte, I just flat spun out, messed up, where Bristol was trying to just send it in there and hope that I could clear him, and obviously I didn’t.”

Briscoe’s latest move at Charlotte caught the attention of Dale Earnhardt Jr., who tweeted, “Big fan!”—in response to the comments by the Dirty Mo Media’s Door Bumper Clear podcast trio. The spotters praised Briscoe’s immense talent and potential while taking him to task on wiping out Reddick and inflicting further pain on Larson. Briscoe took the tweet in stride.

“Dale has always been super, super nice to me,” Briscoe said. “I think he genuinely wants to see me succeed. He's always talked to me and always been a huge help to me. Even in the Xfinity stuff, I would always call Dale before Daytona. The first time, he talked to me for almost an hour. 

“So I feel like Dale really does care about me, and it was cool. I think he knew that I knew it was all in good spirit and I was fine with it. It didn't bother me at all.” 

Briscoe is one of the most genuine racers in NASCAR. The 27-year-old from Mitchell, Ind., sharpened his racing skills through the grassroots ranks and continues to support dirt racing. Before winning the pole for Sunday’s Enjoy Illinois 300, he was racing at nearby Tri-City Speedway—where he was hanging out with Larson while they worked on dirt late models.
And yes, Briscoe cleared the air before they returned to competition.

“I apologized to him,” Briscoe said. “I said, ‘I still don’t know how it happened.’ And he was totally fine.”

Briscoe constantly soaks up information and continues to apply the knowledge to his craft. He used the time with Larson to pick his brain on acclimating to his new challenge.

“I’m all for always getting better,” Briscoe said. “You can always learn. Race car drivers lose way more than they ever win and you can always get better. Anybody that wants to help me, especially a guy like Larson, he’s just so good. I was definitely willing to listen to him—especially  in the dirt late model stuff.”

Briscoe’s work is paying off, especially with the new car, which rewards measured aggression. On Saturday at World Wide Technology Raceway, Briscoe scored his first NASCAR Cup pole. 

“When I ran here in the Truck Series, it was before they repaved it, but I was really fast that night, too,” Briscoe said of his 2017 run with Brad Keselowski Racing. “I sat on the pole here in the trucks and led almost 100 laps and got beat at the end on strategy. I feel like I had a good understanding of the race track. 

“It does race a lot like Phoenix and with this Next Gen car I feel like if you get a package pretty close at one race track and go to a similar race track your car is normally pretty close. In practice, it drove good. I felt like I was anywhere from a third to fifth-place car if we didn’t even change anything. We made it a little better. Hopefully, we can finish it all off (Sunday).”