Event: EchoPark 250 (Round 5 of 33)
Date: March 14, 2020
Location: Atlanta Motor Speedway
Layout: 1.54-mile oval
Chase Briscoe Notes of Interest
● The EchoPark 250 at Atlanta Motor Speedway is the fifth event on the 33-race NASCAR Xfinity Series schedule. It will mark Briscoe’s 55th career Xfinity Series start and his third at Atlanta.
● Briscoe comes into Atlanta second in the championship standings, just three points behind series leader Harrison Burton after a sixth-place finish last Saturday at Phoenix Raceway. It was Briscoe’s third top-10 of the season and his third top-10 in three career Xfinity Series starts at Phoenix.
● Briscoe won the 2019 rookie-of-the-year title in the Xfinity Series and is racing for a championship in 2020. The Mitchell, Indiana-native is a three-time winner in the Xfinity Series and the 2016 ARCA Racing Series champion. Briscoe finished fifth in the Xfinity Series championship standings last year, narrowly missing out on advancing to the Championship 4 and competing for the series title.
● Briscoe has two Xfinity Series starts at Atlanta, both resulting in 15th-place finishes (2018 and 2019). He also made a NASCAR Truck Series start at the track in 2017.
● HighPoint.com returns to Briscoe’s No. 98 Ford Mustang as the primary sponsor for Atlanta. The IT infrastructure and solutions company made its debut with Briscoe in the season-opening race at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway, where Briscoe finished fifth.
CHASE BRISCOE, Driver of the No. 98 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang:
You finished 15th at Atlanta last year and, as the season went on, your progress at intermediate tracks was evident, with it all coming to fruition earlier this year when you won at Las Vegas. How confident are you in your return to Atlanta?
“We were having a good day last year at Atlanta. We were running third or fourth and we blew a right front (tire) with about 15 to go. So, I’m really confident going there that we’ll be able to not just pick up where we left off before that issue, but be able to come out with a top-five or a win. It’s another one of those places that’s kind of slick and worn out, and I love that type of track. It plays into my dirt-racing background, and it’s just a lot of fun to be on those low-grip tracks. I’ve always had speed at Atlanta. I just haven’t had the results to show for it. So, confidence is high there and I know our HighPoint.com Ford Mustang is going to be really good. We were pretty fast there last year and we’re off to a good start with a win on a mile-and-a-half track already this year.”
How much of your performance at Las Vegas can carry over to Atlanta, or are the tracks just completely different?
“The tracks themselves are certainly different, and I feel like our strong suit is the worn-out mile-and-a-halves, although we still do pretty well at the high-grip tracks. I think the biggest thing is to set the tone early, and if you can go to the first mile-and-a-half and show that you’re going to be the guy to beat, hopefully it’ll carry on. We’ve done that now with the win at Vegas, but we’ve got to get back on the right track and finish out the strong runs we’re having. Obviously, trying to run well at the beginning of the year is huge for confidence, not only for myself, but the entire team. When you start winning early, it kind of makes you hungry to keep winning throughout the year, but it also makes it that much more difficult when you have one slip away.”
