Event: UNOH 188 (Round 19 of 33)
Date: Aug. 15, 2020
Location: Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway
Layout: 3.57-mile, 14 turn-road course
Chase Briscoe Notes of Interest
• Briscoe has become one of the stronger road-course competitors in the Xfinity Series. The 25-year-old racer from Mitchell, Indiana, picked up his first career Xfinity Series victory in the series’ inaugural race on the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway Roval in 2018. He also fulfilled his childhood dream of kissing the bricks at the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway when he won earlier this summer on the track’s road course to score his series-leading fifth win of the season and the seventh of his career.
Chase Briscoe, Driver of the No. 98 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang:
You’re from Indiana and you grew up racing sprint cars on dirt tracks. How have you become so good on road courses?
“I hadn’t done any road-course racing until 2016, but once I had the chance, I enjoyed doing it – I just wasn’t very fast. I was always three to three-and-a-half seconds off the fastest guy. I felt like I was going fast, but I wasn’t fast at all. Then in 2018, Ford had me run eight out of the 11 IMSA races on the schedule. That experience allowed me to win on a road course that year at Charlotte, and then I followed that up this year by taking our HighPoint.com Ford Mustang to the win on the road course at Indy. I feel like though my road-course skills have gotten way better, I still have quite a bit to do to get better, but I’m definitely way more in the ballpark now than I ever was before I started running IMSA races.”
What was your reaction to having the Daytona road course added to the Xfinity Series schedule?
“I like it. Obviously, we’re not going to Mid-Ohio or Watkins Glen, so we needed to replace it with another road course. Truthfully, these first-time races have worked out great for me between the Roval and Indy, so I’m all for it. I enjoy going to places where I feel it’s a clean slate just because I don’t feel like I’m behind the eight-ball as much. You go to a place like Mid-Ohio or Road America, where I’d never been to before, and I’m trying to play catch-up to guys who have a lot of laps at those tracks. When we go to a place like the Daytona road course for the first time, we’re all on an even playing field. I would rather run the road course than the superspeedway just because I feel like it puts the race more in the driver’s hands. So, I’m looking forward to it. I think it’s going to be a really good race. The speed difference is going to be huge between what I’ve ran there in the past in IMSA and the stock car. On the simulator, we’re like 195 mph into the bus stop. In the IMSA car, we’re only 165 mph or something like that, so the speed in our HighPoint.com Ford Mustang is going to be way different, but it’s going to be fun.”