Month: July 2022

In The Know – INDIANAPOLIS 

The Verizon 200 at the Brickyard serves as the fourth of six road-course races on the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series schedule. Get up-to-speed on race info, driver stats, our weekly wraps and more as we go road racing this weekend.

The Details

NASCAR Cup Series Overview

●  Event:  Verizon 200 at the Brickyard (Round 22 of 36)
●  Time/Date:  2:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday, July 31
●  Location:  Indianapolis Motor Speedway
●  Layout:  2.439-mile, 14-turn road course
●  Laps/Miles:  82 laps / 200 miles
●  Stage Lengths:  Stage 1: 15 laps / Stage 2: 20 laps / Final Stage: 47 laps
●  TV/Radio:  NBC / IMS Radio Network / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

BROADCAST

SHR FAST FACTS

Kevin Harvick:
Harvick, driver of the No. 4 GEARWRENCH Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing, has made a total of 52 NASCAR Cup Series starts on road courses. He has 21 starts at Sonoma, 20 at Watkins Glen, four at the Charlotte Roval, two apiece at COTA, Road America, and the road course at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway, and one on the road course at Indianapolis – last year’s inaugural Verizon 200 at the Brickyard where Harvick finished 14th. He has scored two road-course wins – Watkins Glen in 2006 and Sonoma in 2017 – along with 11 top-fives and 26 top-10s with 195 laps led.

When Harvick scored his first road-course victory at Watkins Glen in 2006, he had to beat his current team owner to do it. Tony Stewart – the “Stewart” in Stewart-Haas Racing – had won the past two NASCAR Cup Series races at the 2.45-mile, seven-turn road course and was poised to capture a third straight win as he was leading Harvick with four laps to go in the 90-lap race. But Harvick, who had already led once for 24 laps, passed Stewart on lap 87 as the two drag-raced down the frontstretch and into turn one. Harvick held onto the lead despite Stewart in his rearview mirror, earning a margin of victory of .892 of a second.

Harvick’s second career road-course win also had a connection to Stewart. When Harvick won at Sonoma in 2017, he gave Stewart-Haas Racing its second straight victory at the 1.99-mile, 10-turn road course. The winner in 2016? None other than Stewart. It ended up being his 49th and final NASCAR Cup Series victory as Stewart retired from NASCAR racing at the conclusion of the season.

Aric Almirola:
After 21 races this season, Aric Almirola is the only driver in the NASCAR Cup Series without a DNF (Did Not Finish).

Almirola has 31 road-course starts in the NASCAR Cup Series with two top-10 finishes and a best of eighth at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway, five top-20s at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International with a best finish of 12th, three top-20s on the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway Roval with a best finish of 14th, and a top-12 finish in the non-points Busch Clash in 2020 on the Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway road course.

Chase Briscoe:
Just 85 miles south of Indianapolis sits the town of Mitchell, Indiana. The old railroad town spans 3.6 square miles with a population of less than 4,000. But it was in the center of town at a family shop on 14th Street that a young boy watched his father and grandfather prepare cars for the local dirt tracks while dreaming of his shot of carrying on the family legacy and someday returning back home again to Indiana to race at the most famous venue in motorsports – the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. This weekend, Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 14 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), will have two shots to once again kiss the bricks and climb the fence in victory at the Brickyard – first in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race driving the No. 07 Ford Mustang for SS Greenlight Racing, and then on Sunday in the Verizon 200 NASCAR Cup Series race.

The son of Kevin, an accomplished dirt racer, and grandson of Richard, a renowned car owner and builder, Briscoe aspired to follow in the footsteps of his favorite driver and fellow Hoosier Tony Stewart. Stewart, at the time a Cup Series champion, would return home to race at the local short tracks when not behind the wheel of the No. 14 SHR entry, often competing against Kevin as the youngest Briscoe looked on. He practiced his victory celebration dressed in a replica of Stewart’s uniform and helmet until he was old enough to start racing himself. At the age of 14, Briscoe earned his first sprint car win at Paragon Speedway, marking the end of NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon’s reign as the youngest driver to win in a 410 sprint car. From there, Briscoe blazed a path of his own in the stock car world, dominating his first season in the ARCA Menards Series to become the 2016 champion, then earning his first NASCAR Truck Series win in 2017 in his 23rd start.

But it was after a breakthrough 2020 season in the Xfinity Series that saw Briscoe visit victory lane nine times that he finally felt like he was overcoming the odds that always seemed to be stacked against him. Just six years after leaving home to pursue a dream, he found himself back in Indiana, sitting next to his idol as he and his family were told he’d be the next driver of the famed No. 14 Ford Mustang for SHR in the Cup Series. Last year, when the series returned to Indianapolis to compete on the road course for the first time, Briscoe was introduced as the pilot of the No. 14 in front of hundreds of friends, family members and residents of Mitchell who had turned up to see him race at his home track, and he made sure to put on a show for the hometown crowd.

Twenty-four races into his rookie season and determined to earn his first Cup Series win at Indianapolis a year ago, Briscoe qualified second, missing the pole by just .426 of a second, and took the lead on lap two of the race. He finished the first stage in ninth, but from there struggled with a series of flat-spotted tires and green-flag pit stops until a caution on lap 79 set up Briscoe to restart third for the first attempt at a green-white-checkered finish on lap 88. That run was halted by the second multicar incident in a 12-lap span, and Briscoe once again restarted third, behind leader Denny Hamlin, for the second attempt at a green-white-checkered finish. As Hamlin drove wide into turn one and cars bunched up on the restart, Briscoe slid off into the grass. He returned to the track right behind Hamlin and was vying for the lead when contact sent Hamlin’s No. 11 into a spin. Briscoe was subsequently served a penalty for his venture through the grass and making contact with the leader and was parked for the final lap of the race, resulting in a 26th-place finish.

Briscoe’s move for the lead might have ruffled feathers, but his composure when confronted by Hamlin following the race made many take notice of his commitment to carrying on the legacy of the No. 14. Stewart stood by, observing his driver’s tenacity with pride, a moment that Briscoe has noted as a turning point in his career. “Personally, I felt like I was doing my job,” he said. “I’m there to win. But, to have Tony tell me he was proud of me for standing up for myself, that made me realize I’m doing the right thing. He’s the guy I looked up to as a kid and the driver I always wanted to be. He knew who he was and didn’t let anyone push him around, and it’s time for me to do the same.”

Briscoe has been a standout on the 2.439-mile, 14-turn Indianapolis road course layout since his first outing there in 2020 during the NASCAR Xfinity Series’ inaugural race on the circuit. He started 12th in the 38-car field and took the lead for the first time on lap 24, eventually leading five times for a race-high 30 laps. Over the final two laps, the Hoosier had to battle road-course ace AJ Allmendinger, who took the lead from Briscoe on lap 59 and sent him to third after the SHR pilot overdrove a corner. But Briscoe set his sights on regaining the lead and repositioned himself at the front of the field with a powerful drive past second-place Austin Cindric and leader Allmendinger on the penultimate lap. Briscoe wheeled his Ford Mustang throughout the hallowed grounds of the Brickyard en route to victory, beating runner-up Justin Haley to the finish line by a 1.717-second margin. It was Briscoe’s fifth of nine wins in 2020.

It was three months later that Briscoe was announced as the next driver of the No. 14, and he completed the 2021 season having earned Cup Series Rookie of the Year honors. He once again drew attention when he began the 2022 season with a third-place finish in the Daytona 500, then scored his first Cup Series win in the fourth race of the season at Phoenix Raceway.

With 21 of 36 races complete this season, Briscoe has three top-fives and four top-10 finishes, a career-best for the 27-year-old who earned three top-10s in his rookie season. Briscoe is currently 16th in points and holds a spot in the 16-driver playoff field with five races remaining in the regular season.

Cole Custer:

Custer has one other start at the facility, when he drove to an impressive fifth-place finish in the 2020 Brickyard 400 on its iconic 2.5-mile oval. It was his first of two top-fives during his Cup Series Rookie of the Year campaign, which he followed up with a dramatic victory the following weekend at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta.

Sunday’s race will be Custer’s 13th road-course start in the Cup Series. He qualified 10th and finished 15th in the July 3 race at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. He posted stout qualifying efforts at the previous two road-course races – third for the March 27 event at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas, and sixth for the June 12 race at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway – but late-race, multicar chaos foiled his bids for finishes deep inside the top-10 at both events. Custer’s best Cup Series finish on a road course was ninth in the October 2020 race on the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway Roval.

OUR WEEKLY WRAPS

Check out the schemes we’re bringing to the Brickyard this week.

What Our Drivers are Saying:

Kevin Harvick, Driver of the No. 4  GEARWRENCH Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

Last year’s road-course race at Indianapolis turned into a bumper-car race, particularly at the end when Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin traded bumps that sent them both off the track and into an animated post-race discussion on pit road. What’s OK and what’s not OK in road-course racing, because we saw similar bumping and banging earlier this year at COTA?
“Road-course racing in general has become rougher over the last decade just because of the stage racing and the double-file restarts and everything that comes with that. I wish we could implement our choose rule in some of these situations at places like that because I think it would make it even more entertaining. But road-course racing has just progressively gotten rougher, and now with the new car and not having to worry about caving in a fender or something, you can pretty much just lay it in there and see what happens.”

Aric Almirola, Driver of the No. 10 Mobil 1/GEARWRENCH for Stewart-Haas Racing:

You’re two positions behind the playoff cut line right now and 140 points out. What is the game plan for the next five races?
“Win. Fortunately, we’re 13th in the point standings so a win would put us in a good spot if we had more than 16 winners before the playoffs begin. There has been so much parity this year that you don’t know who’s going to be good each weekend. There are some guys that are better on road courses than others, but you look at Michigan, Richmond and Daytona as complete wild cards. We even had guys far back in the standings that have run top-three at road courses, too. Hopefully, this weekend is one we show a lot of speed. A lot can change in the next five weeks and we hope it doesn’t come down to a Hail Mary at Daytona.”

Chase Briscoe, Driver of the No. 14 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

How are you feeling about returning to Indianapolis this weekend and running double duty?
“I’m excited. There’s a lot of pressure that I put on myself during Indy weekend. I want to go there and win both practice sessions, both qualifying sessions and both races and that’s kind of the mentality I start with weeks out because I know it’s something that is definitely attainable. When you go to Indy being an Indiana guy, you have pressure coming from everywhere. There are a lot of people, friends and just fans, that don’t get to see me race anywhere else that are from that area. So, I’m definitely excited to get there and pull double duty. It looks like the Xfinity race is going to have a lot of Cup guys, so it’ll be a good test for Sunday. I’m really looking forward to getting there and spending a week at home.”

Cole Custer, Driver of the No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

f you could have the keys to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for a day, what would you do?
“I’d probably just go over and see all the trophies and all the history in the museum there. It’s one of the coolest things. They have some special stuff downstairs that I think would be really cool to see, all the historic stuff that they have there. Having the first (Cup Series) road-course race there last year was huge, it was historic, and it was a crazy race. Indy is obviously the most historic track maybe in the world, definitely in the United States, so I’m really looking forward to going back.”

MENTOR & MENTEE: HARNESSING EMOTIONS

Harnessing your emotions is an advantage. Tony Stewart and Chase Briscoe talk about staying in control when it matters on the latest episode Mentor & Mentee presented by Mahindra Tractors.

In The Know – Pocono 

We head to Pocono Raceway this weekend, known as the “Tricky Triangle” for its three distinct corners connected by three straightaways, including an enormously long 3,740-foot frontstretch. Get up-to-speed on race info, driver stats, our weekly wraps and more below as we race into the tricky weekend ahead.

The Details

NASCAR Cup Series Overview

●  Event:  M&M’s Fan Appreciation 400 (Round 21 of 36)
●  Time/Date:  3 p.m. EDT on Sunday, July 24
●  Location:  Pocono (Pa.) Raceway
●  Layout:  2.5-mile triangle
●  Laps/Miles:  160 laps/400 miles
●  Stage Lengths:  Stage 1: 30 laps / Stage 2: 65 laps / Final Stage: 65 laps
●  TV/Radio:  USA / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

BROADCAST

SHR FAST FACTS

Kevin Harvick:
Harvick comes into Pocono riding a wave of front-running consistency. The Bakersfield, California-native hasn’t finished worse than 12th in his last five races, including a strong fifth-place result last Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon.

Sunday’s M&M’s Fan Appreciation 400 will mark Harvick’s 43rd NASCAR Cup Series start at Pocono. The 22-year Cup Series veteran has finished among the top-10 in half of those starts, and among active drivers, Harvick leads the series in top-fives (15), top-10s (22) and laps led (6,992).

Harvick has a five-race streak of top-10 finishes at Pocono. If you take out a lone 22nd-place finish in June 2019, Harvick’s run of top-10s at the 2.5-mile triangle would extend back to June 2016 when he finished ninth, a span of 11 races.

On June 27, 2020 in his 39th NASCAR Cup Series start at Pocono, Harvick finally nabbed a coveted victory at the “Tricky Triangle”. After starting ninth and methodically working his way toward the front, Harvick led the final 17 laps to take the checkered flag by .761 of a second over runner-up Denny Hamlin in the first race of a doubleheader weekend at Pocono. Harvick then followed up his win with a strong second-place finish on Sunday.

Aric Almirola:
 Almirola will make his 20th Cup Series start at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway this weekend. Almirola has four top-10s, two top-fives and 67 laps led at the 2.5-mile track.

The No. 10 Ford driver sits 18th in the playoff standings, 129 points behind the top-16 cut line. Almirola has scored more points than six of the 14 drivers currently locked into the playoffs by virtue of race wins this season.

Chase Briscoe:
Briscoe already has two victories at Pocono – one in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and one in the ARCA Menards Series. In 2020, the native of Mitchell, Indiana, overcame a pit-road speeding penalty, a near-miss in a multicar accident and a late-race spin while leading to notch his fourth Xfinity Series win of the season and the first home-track win for HighPoint.com. He led 24 laps that day.

On July 29, 2016, Briscoe won the ARCA event at Pocono, the last in a series of four consecutive victories that year. He led all but nine of the race’s 60 laps. Following Pocono, he picked up two more victories to take the ARCA championship by an impressive 535 points.

Cole Custer:
Sunday’s 160-lap, 400-mile race will be Custer’s 96th career Cup Series start and his sixth at Pocono. His best Cup Series results at the 2.5-mile “Tricky Triangle” came during his 2020 Rookie of the Year campaign, when he posted finishes of 16th and 17th, respectively, in the Saturday and Sunday races of the June 2020 weekend doubleheader.

Custer scored a victory and two pole positions in his three Pocono Xfinity Series starts behind the wheel of the No. 00 SHR Ford from 2017 through 2019. He never started worse than third, never finished worse than seventh, and led a total of 95 laps in the three events. He qualified third and finished seventh in 2017, then qualified on the pole in both the 2018 and 2019 races, finishing fifth in 2018 and scoring the victory by .228 of a second over Tyler Reddick in 2019 after leading a race-high 58 laps.

OUR WEEKLY WRAPS

Painted for Pocono. Check out the schemes we’re bringing to the track this week.

What Our Drivers are Saying:

Kevin Harvick, Driver of the No. 4  Busch Light Apple #BuschTrickyTrivia Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

What makes a lap at Pocono so challenging?
“When you look at Pocono, you know that you’re going to have a challenge of getting your car to handle in all three corners. That’s the biggest challenge when it comes to Pocono. You have to make sure you can get all you can coming to turn three because the straightaway after that is really, really long. You can kind of give up the tunnel turn, but you still need to be very good in all three corners. It’s just a different style of racetrack than what we go to on a week-to-week basis.”

Aric Almirola, Driver of the No. 10 Haas Automation for Stewart-Haas Racing:

What is going to be the key to success this weekend?
“It’s going to be important to have cars that drive good. These cars have shock limiters, and the amount of shock travel we have, and going through three different corners to try and make this aero platform correct is going to be a challenge. There are just so many variables that make Pocono unique, and it takes somewhat of a compromise, so whoever figures out that compromise best, not only from the drivers but the engineers, as well, is going to win, and I hope we got a head start on that because of that test.”

Chase Briscoe, Driver of the No. 14 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

The playoff picture has changed a lot the last few weeks with some new winners, repeat winners, and some shifts in points. How do you feel about where you stand with only six races left in the regular season?
“I’m not really sure. It makes me a little nervous, but I can’t worry about it too much. We just need to do a better job each week because it could definitely come down to a points situation. You know a lot of people think it’s the playoff points, but it’s the regular-season points that we’re going to start going off of when guys start to get eliminated if we’ve got more than 16 race winners. So, for us, we just need to try and capitalize on the stages and just maximize our day because we’re racing for those final spots against guys that have won and guys that are running really well. We can hope it’s just repeat winners the next few weeks and that helps, but there are too many tracks left where anything can happen. It would be nice to go get another win and take ourselves out of that position, but it’s just not that easy. You really have to put a whole race together with no mistakes and hit the right setup. It’s definitely nerve-wracking that there are six races left and only two guys without wins in (the playoff field). That’s what makes it exciting, though.”

Cole Custer, Driver of the No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

You’re well into the dog days of summer. How do drivers deal with the mental and physical aspects of keeping yourselves fresh week in and week out?
“It’s an extremely long season. We have one of the longest seasons in sports. We race a lot of races and the biggest thing is you just have to keep yourself feeling good and you have to keep yourself in a positive mindset. I think if you’re dragging it out every single week and you’re taking the last week a few days into your next week, it starts dragging on and you start not feeling great and you start getting down on yourself. You have to just put the last week in the past, usually, and move on to the next week and keep yourself feeling good.”

MENTOR & MENTEE: HARNESSING EMOTIONS

Harnessing your emotions is an advantage. Tony Stewart and Chase Briscoe talk about staying in control when it matters on the latest episode Mentor & Mentee presented by Mahindra Tractors.

#BUSCHTRICKYTRIVIA

Kevin Harvick’s No. 4 Busch Light Apple Ford Mustang is rocking a #BuschTrickyTrivia hashtag on its quarterpanels as Busch Light tees up some in-race trivia during USA’s broadcast of the M&M’s Fan Appreciation 400 at 3 p.m. EDT on Sunday. During each stage of the 160-lap race around the 2.5-mile triangle, Busch Light will tweet out three trivia questions – one at the beginning, middle and end of each stage – and fans will have only three minutes to answer each question. To enter, fans just need to follow @BuschBeer, turn on their notifications, and tweet #BuschTrickyTrivia and #Sweepstakes, along with their answer, to win tricked-out prizes. Each stage will have a theme, with Stage 1 relating to NASCAR’s history at Pocono, Stage 2 being about Harvick, and the third and final stage highlighting Busch Beer’s NASCAR affiliation. So with this speech as our recital, we think it’s very vital, to tweet #BuschTrickyTrivia because tricky is a part of the title. Here we go!

In The Know – New Hampshire 

We head to the Magic Mile this weekend where SHR has won three of the last four races (2018, 2019 and 2021). Get up-to-speed on race info, driver stats, our weekly wraps and more below as we look to earn our lobster in New Hampshire.

The Details

NASCAR Cup Series Overview

●  Event:  Ambetter 301 (Round 20 of 36)
●  Time/Date:  3 p.m. EDT on Sunday, July 17
●  Location:  New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon
●  Layout:  1.058-mile oval
●  Laps/Miles:  301 laps / 318.46 miles
●  Stage Lengths:  Stage 1: 70 laps / Stage 2: 115 laps / Final Stage: 116 laps
●  TV/Radio:  USA / PRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

BROADCAST

SHR FAST FACTS

Kevin Harvick:
Harvick has won two of the last four races at New Hampshire (2018 and 2019), and in his last eight starts at “The Magic Mile”, he only has one finish outside the top-six. Harvick finished sixth last year at New Hampshire, and he comes into this year’s Ambetter 301 looking to score his fifth straight top-10.

While Harvick has always been good at New Hampshire, his performance at the track took a dramatic turn upward when he joined SHR in 2014. In the 12 races contested at New Hampshire since wheeling the No. 4 car for SHR, Harvick has scored three wins and has only four finishes outside of the top-five. And of his 831 career laps led at New Hampshire, 512 have come in the last 11 races (46.5 percent)

Aric Almirola:
Almirola is the most recent NASCAR Cup Series race winner at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.After a two-hour rain delay, Almirola and the field battled daylight during the race last July. With darkness closing in on the 1.058-mile oval, Almirola sprung to life late and pulled off the surprise victory, his and Stewart-Haas Racing’s first of the year. The win catapulted Almirola from 27th in the standings to the playoffs for the fourth consecutive year and fifth time in his career.

History at New Hampshire: While last year’s win was his first at New Hampshire, Almirola has been on a hot streak there since joining SHR. In the last four races at “The Magic Mile,” Almirola is ranked second overall behind only teammate Kevin Harvick. In his first start at New Hampshire with SHR in 2018, he finished third, then 11th the following year. In 2020, he started from the pole and finished seventh before returning last year for his first career victory at the track. In 18 starts at New Hampshire, Almirola has four top-10 finishes and two top-fives with 56 laps led.

Almirola has already shown success at a track like New Hampshire in the NextGen car. The No. 10 driver finished fifth at Gateway International Raceway in Madison, Illinois, which is a flat, 1.25-mile oval with similarities to New Hampshire in turns three and four

Chase Briscoe:
Briscoe is 18th in the driver standings with seven races remaining in the regular season. He currently holds a spot in the 16-driver playoff field by virtue of his March 13 win at Phoenix Raceway.

In last year’s 301-lap event at New Hampshire, Briscoe started 19th and finished 27th in his first start at “The Magic Mile” in nearly two years.

Cole Custer:
Sunday’s race on the flat, 1.058-mile New Hampshire Motor Speedway oval will be Custer’s 95th career NASCAR Cup Series start and his third at New Hampshire. He started 14th and finished eighth in his first start there during his 2020 Cup Series Rookie of the Year campaign. He started 21st and finished 14th there last July.

In his three New Hampshire starts in the NASCAR Xfinity Series from 2017 through 2019, Custer finished in the top-10 in all three, his best resulting in a runner-up finish from the pole in his most recent outing. His first two appearances resulted in ninth-place finishes. All three outings came behind the wheel of the No. 00 SHR Ford.

OUR WEEKLY WRAPS

Our schemes this week are as fresh as the lobster. Check them out.

What Our Drivers are Saying:

Kevin Harvick, Driver of the No. 4  GEARWRENCH Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

Phoenix Raceway is your best track, statistically, but New Hampshire isn’t far off from your results at Phoenix. Four career wins and eight top-fives in the last 11 races is proof of that. Are there similarities between Phoenix and New Hampshire?
“Flat tracks have always been really good for me in my career. When you look at SHR and the things we’ve been able to accomplish at Loudon and Phoenix, they’ve kind of followed that same trend. A lot of that goes back to that open test time we had at Milwaukee and Nashville. Those are the places where we would practice and practice and practice. Our guys have done a great job of having a good short-track, flat-track program, and Loudon is a place that has followed along with Phoenix and the success that we’ve had there and to be able to capitalize on that success and continue it at another track.”

Aric Almirola, Driver of the No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

Do you feel like you have to make the playoffs to consider it a great year?
“Making the playoffs is the goal. You can’t run for a championship if you don’t make the playoffs. We start every year with a list of goals and the priority is to do everything you can to make the playoffs, whether that is on points or winning races. We’ve done a good job this year of scoring points and putting ourselves in a position that typically would have us racing our way in by points. But with this atypical year, we’ve had a ton of different winners. I feel like we are having a good year and that’s crazy to feel that way considering where we are in the points. I feel like I’ve had as good of a year as any year at Stewart-Haas and the playoffs were achieved in those years. To be on the outside right now just speaks to the competitiveness. Last weekend, you saw Corey Lajoie almost win it, and he’s outside of the top-30, so it’s a crazy year where anyone can win it at any time.”

Chase Briscoe, Driver of the No. 14 Mahindra Tractors Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

We saw some aggression on the flatter, shorter tracks like Gateway. Is that what we’ll see at New Hampshire?
“For sure. I feel like on the short tracks, this car’s been kind of harder to pass with. And I think guys know that now, especially now that we’ve run a couple of them. So I think you’re definitely going to see more aggression. And I think New Hampshire is going to be a handful, just from how rough the racetrack is in this car, getting on the limiters and things like that.”

Cole Custer, Driver of the No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

What do you think it will take to enable you and the team to run up front on a more consistent basis?
“It’s just the little things with this brand new car. There’s been a lot of learning this year trying to figure out what these cars really want, setup-wise, to run up front. I think we’re starting to dial that in a little bit more and more, and I think execution from there, if we can do that, we’ll be where we need to be.”

MENTOR & MENTEE: RACING TOUGH

In episode 1 of our 8-part series, ​Mentor & Mentee presented by Mahindra Tractors, Chase Briscoe and Tony Stewart talk about racing tough and everything that comes with it.

In The Know – Road America

The Road America 250 Sunday at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, serves as the third of six road-course races on the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series schedule. Get up-to-speed on race info, driver stats, our weekly wraps and more below as we head to America’s National Park of Speed.

The Details

NASCAR Cup Series Overview

● Event:  Road America 250 (Round 18 of 36)
●  Time/Date:  3 p.m. EDT on Sunday, July 3
●  Location:  Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin
●  Layout:  4.048-mile, 14-turn road course
●  Laps/Miles:  62 laps/250.98 miles
●  Stage Lengths:  Stage 1: 15 laps / Stage 2: 15 laps / Final Stage: 32 laps
●  TV/Radio:  USA / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

BROADCAST

SHR FAST FACTS

Kevin Harvick:
Harvick, driver of the No. 4 Busch Light Apple Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing, has made a total of 51 NASCAR Cup Series starts on road courses. He has 21 starts at Sonoma, 20 at Watkins Glen, four at the Charlotte Roval, two on the road course at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway, two at COTA, and one apiece at Road America and the road course at Indianapolis. He has scored two wins – Watkins Glen in 2006 and Sonoma in 2017 – along with 11 top-fives and 25 top-10s with 195 laps led.

When Harvick scored his first road-course victory at Watkins Glen in 2006, he had to beat his current team owner to do it. Tony Stewart – the “Stewart” in Stewart-Haas Racing – had won the past two NASCAR Cup Series races at the 2.45-mile, seven-turn road course and was poised to capture a third straight win as he was leading Harvick with four laps to go in the 90-lap race. But Harvick, who had already led once for 24 laps, passed Stewart on lap 87 as the two drag-raced down the frontstretch and into turn one. Harvick held onto the lead despite Stewart in his rearview mirror, earning a margin of victory of .892 of a second.

Aric Almirola:
After 17 races this season, Almirola is the only driver in the NASCAR Cup Series without a DNF (Did Not Finish). He has completed all but five laps of the 4,650 run this year – a 99.9 percent completion rate.

Last year at Road America, Almirola led one lap and finished 14th. Almirola has 30 road-course starts in the NASCAR Cup Series with two top-10 finishes and a best of eighth at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway, five top-20s at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International with a best finish of 12th, three top-20s on the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway Roval with a best finish of 14th, and a top-12 finish in the non-points Busch Clash in 2020 on the Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway road course. Almirola’s most recent road-course race proved to be a success when piloted the No. 10 Ford to a 14th place finish at Sonoma, but was one of the highest points earners of the d

Chase Briscoe:
The HighPoint.com driver started 35th and drove his way to a sixth-place finish a year ago this weekend at Road America. It was his second of three top-10 finishes in 2021. In total, Briscoe has nine Cup Series starts on road courses with three top-10s. He finished 13th in his most recent road-course race June 12 at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway.

The 27-year-old racer from Mitchell, Indiana, picked up two Xfinity Series wins on road courses – his first career Xfinity Series victory was in the series’ inaugural race on the Charlotte Roval in 2018. He also fulfilled his childhood dream of kissing the historic Yard of Bricks when he scored his fifth win of the 2020 season on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.

Cole Custer:
Custer will also make his third NASCAR Xfinity Series appearance of the season behind the wheel of the No. 07 SS Greenlight Racing Ford Mustang during Saturday’s Henry 180. In his 13 previous Xfinity Series outings on road courses, Custer finished outside the top-10 just once with a best result of third in this year’s March 26 race at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. He was fourth in the 2018 Xfinity Series race at Road America and has two other top-10s there. Custer’s first Xfinity Series outing in the No. 07 Mustang this year resulted in a victory from the second starting position Feb. 26 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California.

Custer also has top-10s in all three of his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series outings on road courses, all at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario. His best was his most recent, a second-place run from the pole with a race-high 39 laps led in the No. 00 JR Motorsports entry in 2016. He also made three starts apiece on the road courses at Sonoma and Watkins Glen in NASCAR K&N Pro Series competition, with best finishes of third in the 2016 East Series race at Watkins Glen after having qualified on the pole there the previous year, and fourth in the 2019 West Series race at Sonoma.

OUR WEEKLY WRAPS

We’re ready for some road racin’ in America. Check out the schemes we’re bringing to Road America.

What Our Drivers are Saying:

Kevin Harvick, Driver of the No. 4  Busch Light Apple Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

What were your overall thoughts last year racing at Road America?
“Being in that part of the country and seeing the way that the Cup Series was taken to by the fans, and seeing all the fans – I mean, they were hiding between the trees, campers, all over the place. It was definitely a lot of fun to see all the people, and just a neat place to be during that time of the year.”

Aric Almirola, Driver of the No. 10 Haas Automation Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

You don’t consider yourself a road course ace, but you were one of the highest points earners at Sonoma three weekends ago. Are points the strategy at road courses this year?
“Yes and no. We came to Sonoma with a good car and I felt good about it, but feeling good about it means a top-10 or top-five run. I didn’t grow up road-course racing like some of these guys. Drew Blickensderfer (crew chief) put us on a great strategy and we were really good on the long run, so we were able to capitalize on stage points each stage. We knew if the race went long enough without a caution, we would have a shot at top-10 or top-five, but a caution came out in the middle of our long run. We still finished fourth and were credited 38 points, which is the equivalent of winning the race with no stage points, so if we get the opportunity to do that, we’re going to take it.”

Chase Briscoe, Driver of the No. 14 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

How do you stay grounded and focused on what’s ahead?
“Johnny (Klausmeier, crew chief) and my team, I feel like, do a really good job of that. I feel like, internally, I kind of do try to do the same. I just don’t have a ton of experience in the playoff format. You know that I’ve only done it three years now and that was on the Trucks and Xfinity levels. So at the Cup level, obviously, it’s way more intense, way more cutthroat. So I don’t know, I feel like I’ve not done a great job in the past in the lower series of doing the playoff run. So I just need to do a better job, at the end of the day. And I feel like if we if I do a good job, my team puts a car under me and people who make me capable of running up front and trying to win races. It’s just a matter of putting it all together and limiting mistakes.”

Cole Custer, Driver of the No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

One of the track’s nicknames is “America’s National Park of Speed,” and the fans there are known to be among the most passionate in all of motorsports. How do you like that aspect of racing there?
“Those cheese lovers, they might be out of control (laughs). It’s awesome to go up there. Just hardcore race fans, people who live and die by that racetrack, and I think it’s really cool to see people who are that passionate about the sport.”

GEN TERMS: SHEESH

SHEEEEESH! Our drivers and pit crews are learning a new word on the latest Gen Z Terms.