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CHASE BRISCOE – 2020 NXS Daytona Road Course Race Advance

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

• The NASCAR Xfinity Series heads to Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway for its second consecutive road-course event and Chase Briscoe looks to better his third-place result from last Saturday’s Henry 180 at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. The driver of the No. 98 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang battled through lightning delays and a rain-soaked track to sit within sight of the victory with just two laps remaining in the 45-lap race around the 4.048-mile, 14-turn road course, but Briscoe ultimately crossed the finish line in third behind two of the stronger road-couse racers in the field – race-winner Austin Cindric and A.J. Allmendinger.
• As a result of the third-place finish at Road America, Briscoe remains second in the championship standings and well within reach of the top spot, as he is just eleven points behind leader Cindric. However, Briscoe still leads the Xfinity Series in wins with five (next best has four wins) and playoff points with 28 (next best has 27) with eight races remaining in the regular season.
• While Saturday’s UNOH 188 will mark the first time a NASCAR series will run on the 3.57-mile, 14-turn course that encompasses the infield of the famed 2.5-mile superspeedway, there are a handful of drivers competing in the UNOH 188 that have turned laps on the Daytona road course. Briscoe is among this group, as has competed in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race three times as part of the season-opening Rolex 24 weekend. His best finish was fifth in 2019 when he teamed up with Cindric and former IMSA champion Billy Johnson in a Ford Mustang GT4.

• 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.

• Briscoe has finished among the top-10 in all but one of the eight road-course races in which he has competed in the Xfinity Series. And in his lone NASCAR Gander Outdoors & RV Truck Series start on a road course – 2017 at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park – Briscoe finished seventh in a Ford F-150.

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.”