Austin Cindric had heard the same old song before. His buddy and fellow Ford driver, Chase Briscoe, was poor-mouthing his chances in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series on the dirt half-mile at Eldora Speedway earlier this year.
Before the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course last Saturday, Briscoe was similarly negative after practice.
“It’s funny, the two races he’s won this year, which were probably the two biggest wild cards in NASCAR, he’s texted me back and forth after practice about how terrible he was in practice,” Cindric said on Friday at Dover International Speedway.
“At Eldora he was like, ‘We’re terrible. I’m going to run like junk.’ And he goes and wins the race the next day. It was the same thing at the Roval.”
A Ford development driver, Briscoe hasn’t firmed up his plans for next year, but the Charlotte victory certainly lifted his spirits.
“It’s pretty cool to say that we’re the first guy to win at the Roval, and I don’t think it’s sunk in quite yet, just because, going to Saturday, I truthfully didn’t expect to go win,” Briscoe said. “I was just going to be happy to run around 10th and have a clean race and finish, so to be able to get the win like that and not just lead the last lap, but lead quite a bit of the laps, it was definitely cool.
“I don’t know if it’s necessarily sunk in yet, but I think confidence-wise it’ll help for the remainder of this season just building that, being able to go to the race track, just because, truthfully, my confidence had been a little bit down with the way the season had been going
“But for next year, I think it always helps if you’re winning, whether it’s in a sprint car or an Xfinity car or whatever. We’re still trying to line up what 2019 holds, but Ford has assured me that I’ll be in something, just trying to figure out what it’s going be.”
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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