Briscoe May Have Winning Edge in Cup Series Debut on IMS Road Course
August 09, 2021 | By Curt Cavin
NASCAR Cup Series driver Chris Buescher figures no one is more excited for the series’ inaugural Verizon 200 at the Brickyard this Sunday than Chase Briscoe. Buescher is likely right, but perhaps not for the reason he recently suggested.
Yes, Briscoe is the one of the few Cup Series regulars to have raced on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 14-turn, 2.439-mile road course – he won last year’s first Pennzoil 150 at the Brickyard NASCAR Xfinity Series race on the circuit – but this is also the track he grew up watching the most. Still is, to be honest.
INDYCAR, NASCAR, even Formula One and MotoGP. Briscoe has watched as much as possible dating back to his days as a young racer 90 minutes south of Indy, in Mitchell, Indiana.
“Ever since I was a little kid I’ve watched (IMS races),” said Briscoe, who was born four months after Jeff Gordon won the inaugural stock car race at IMS in 1994. “Obviously, the Brickyard and the Indy 500 are the two big races of the year for (Hoosiers), and now to be a part of one of those races is going to be super humbling.”
Briscoe, 26, has shown to be on the upward path in stock cars. He converted six wins in ARCA Menards Series in 2015, including wins at Winchester (Indiana) Speedway and Lucas Oil Raceway in Brownsburg, Indiana, into a Camping World Truck Series program for 2017. In trucks, he won a pair of races, highlighted by a win from the pole on dirt at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio.
In 2018, Briscoe’s calendar was full of Xfinity Series races, and he earned his first Xfinity victory at Charlotte Motor Speedway on the road course. Over three seasons, he won 11 races, including nine of 20 last year. One of those wins was the series’ inaugural road course race at IMS.
This season, Briscoe is driving the No. 14 Chevrolet of Stewart-Haas Racing, an entry once driven by another Hoosier: Tony Stewart. Briscoe’s first top-10 finish of his first Cup season came at Circuit of The Americas, where he finished sixth May 23. He finished in the same position July 4 at Road America. He finished ninth in last Sunday’s road race at Watkins Glen International.
The combination of strong road course performances gives him confidence as the series arrives in Indy.
“Obviously, it’s going to be different not (racing) on the oval, but it’s time to write a new chapter in the history, and hopefully I can be a first-time winner of the Brickyard (road course),” he said. “That would be pretty special.”
Briscoe might be a Cup rookie, but Buescher can imagine him winning.
“I bet (he’s) happy about (the opportunity) and being the one Cup driver who has been there,” he said.
Said Briscoe: “I’d like to think that’s one of the races where I’ll have experience and the rest of the field doesn’t, so I’ll just try to use it to my advantage.”