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CHASE BRISCOE – 2020 NXS Las Vegas II Race Advance

Event:  Alsco 300 (Round 27 of 33)
Date:  Sept. 26, 2020
Location:  Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Layout:  1.5-mile oval

 

Chase Briscoe Notes of Interest

 

•  The NASCAR Xfinity Series playoffs begin at 7:30 p.m. EDT on Saturday with the series’ return to Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the Alsco 300. Chase Briscoe is the No. 1 seed in the 12-driver playoffs thanks to a dominating performance during the regular season. His seven victories are two more than any other driver, and combined with his five stage wins, Briscoe takes an impressive 50 bonus points into the playoffs.
•  The Xfinity Series playoffs feature the top-12 drivers. There are three rounds, with the 12-driver field whittled down to eight after the first round and then to four after the second round, with those four drivers competing for the championship in the season finale Nov. 7 at Phoenix Raceway. The first round begins at Las Vegas followed by Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway on Oct. 3 and the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway Roval on Oct. 10. The top-eight drivers after Charlotte move on to the second round, which is comprised of Kansas Speedway on Oct. 17, Texas Motor Speedway on Oct. 24 and Martinsville (Va.) Speedway on Oct. 31. The top-four drivers after Martinsville compete in the Championship 4 at Phoenix, where the highest finishing driver is crowned the 2020 Xfinity Series champion.
•  This is Briscoe’s second straight playoff appearance. He finished fifth in the Xfinity Series standings last year, narrowly missing out on advancing to the Championship 4 and competing for the series title. He did, however, win the rookie-of-the-year award.
•  Beyond being the No. 1 seed to start the playoffs and having a series-best seven wins, there are other numbers that bolster Briscoe’s championship aspirations:

•  Briscoe has already led 538 laps this season, 341 more laps than he led all last season.
•  Briscoe has already scored 14 top-fives, one more than he earned last year.
•  Briscoe’s average starting position this season is 7.1, an improvement over his 8.8 averagestarting positon last year.
•  Briscoe’s average finishing position is 7.6, bettering his 8.2 average finishing positon in 2019.
•  Briscoe comes into Las Vegas with momentum. He won the series’ most recent race last Friday night at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, feasting in the Food City 300. Briscoe led three times for 11 laps around the .533-mile oval, but it was the final six tours in the 300-lap contest that proved the most important. The 25-year-old racer from Mitchell, Indiana, muscled his way into the lead on lap 295 and pulled away with more than a half-second advantage over his nearest pursuer when the checkered flag dropped. It was Briscoe’s ninth career Xfinity Series victory, but his first at Bristol.
•  Briscoe is also the most recent Xfinity Series winner at Las Vegas. The first of his seven victories this year came on Feb. 23 in the Boyd Gaming 300. Briscoe led five times for a race-high 89 laps and his margin of victory over second-place Austin Cindric was an impressive 2.874 seconds.
•  Briscoe has made four career Xfinity Series starts at Las Vegas with two top-10s. He also made a NASCAR Truck Series start at the 1.5-mile oval in September 2017, starting third and leading the first 40 laps before finishing third in a Ford F-150.
•  Briscoe’s No. 98 Ford Mustang from Stewart-Haas Racing will carry the colors of FIELDS for the Alsco 300. FIELDS, one of the Sports Fields Inc., companies, is the preeminent builder of fields and sports parks in the country. FIELDS is committed to “Building Sports Parks of Distinction.” The fields produced facilitate peak team performance and are constructed using the industry’s best resources and embody the essence of durability, precision, technological innovation, service and quality.

Chase Briscoe, Driver of the No. 98 FIELDS Ford Mustang:

 

You’re coming off you’re seventh win of the year last weekend at Bristol and now you’re headed back to the location of your first win of 2020 this weekend at Las Vegas. Is team confidence at an all-time high for the start of the playoffs?

“Yeah, Bristol was a huge momentum builder for our team. This is the time of the year when you want your momentum and confidence to be high. For us to win Bristol was big, and if we could go to Las Vegas and go back to back it would be great for our team confidence. It would also send a message to these other teams that we’re serious and, hopefully, we’re going to be the team they have to go through. This is the time when teams can really come together and thrive or fall apart. I feel like our team has been great all year long at fighting adversity and continuing to battle. That’s what the playoffs are all about.”

Is there a race in this first round that holds more importance in terms of advancing?

“Las Vegas is probably the most important race of the year outside of the championship race at Phoenix because if you have a bad race at Las Vegas, you can get knocked out of the playoffs even with the points buffer we have. You never know what could happen at Talladega or the Roval, so this weekend is super important if we want to be safe and advance to the next round. I don’t think either round plays into our favor, but we don’t have any bad tracks. We just need to make the most out of this weekend with our FIELDS Ford Mustang and continue to add playoff points and wins until we reach Phoenix.”