Chase Briscoe has been quiet much of the season to date. The Stewart-Haas Racing driver is a rookie in the NASCAR Cup series but has shown some strength on road courses.
Briscoe finished sixth at COTA earlier this season and matched that Sunday at Road America. After starting 35th after issues during qualifying, Briscoe avoided trouble, overcame a pit road penalty on lap 11 and in the closing laps was running inside the top 10. He was battling Kurt Busch and Denny Hamlin late in the going and appeared to be well on his way to his first career top five finish.
In the final laps however, he came up short.
“I thought we were good enough to run fourth there at the end, but my engine shut off,” Briscoe said. “It was really cool to run sixth and be the best Ford today. We definitely had a lot of adversity with not getting a qualifying lap in and then the penalty at the beginning. I felt like we had a really good car on the long run. I am proud of that. It was a good day overall. We needed that. We will go on to the next one and see if we can get better.”
That next one is next Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. In his first run in the Cup series in the spring, he finished 23rd.
Briscoe will also face adversity next Sunday in Atlanta. In post-race inspection Sunday evening the No. 14 car was found to have two missing lugnuts. The penalty for that is a crew chief suspension for the next event meaning Briscoe will be without Johnny Klausmeier.
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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