By Sarah Handy, Staff Writer
Chase Briscoe was on track to capture his third NASCAR Xfinity win of the season at Atlanta in Saturday’s EchoPark 250.
However, a late race speeding penalty on pit road went on to change everything.
A random qualifying draw saw Briscoe’s No. 98 Highpoint.com Ford starting in the ninth position – his eighth race this season starting no worse than 11th on the grid.
Briscoe’s finishes of eighth and second in the first two stages set him up to be at the front. Leading with less than 40 laps remaining, the final pit stops began as the leaders came in for service.
It was during these final pit stop of the day that Briscoe’s No. 98 was busted for speeding at 50.07 mph — along with the other two front runners, the No. 7 of [Justin] Allgaier and the of No. 22 of [Austin] Cindric.
“That last pit stop apparently I sped,” said Briscoe. “It was 50.07 which I guess was barely enough to get busted. I was trying to get all I could get, and it was a stupid mistake with how good our car was and how good our pit crew was. It was a stupid mistake. I got to learn and get better.”
Briscoe went from the lead to 25th with only 34 laps remaining in the race. Even so, he was able to rally back to ninth as the checkered flag waved.
Briscoe addressed the speeding penalty post race, saying, “They came over the radio and said the 98, 22 and 7 all got busted speeding in the exact same section,” said Briscoe. “I don’t know if that section was just fast for whatever reason or what. I know at the beginning of the race, before we started, in the pit road practice I sped in that exact same section as well. We will keep that in the notebook for when we come back.”
Despite the penalty, Briscoe’s ninth place finish was his sixth Top-10 finish of the season.
“Overall though it was another [really] good week for our High Point Ford,” Briscoe said. “These things aren’t easy to win. You have to do everything perfect. Making a mistake that late in the race makes it really hard to recover.”
Next up, the series heads to Homestead-Miami Speedway for a double header next weekend. In two previous NASCAR Xfinity starts at the South Florida track, Briscoe has finishes of 13th and third.
He remains the championship leader after Atlanta with a four-point advantage over second-place Noah Gragson.
These races aren’t easy to win, you have to do everything right and be perfect and today I made a costly mistake. Cost our team a win and a chance at dash 4 cash. The upside is we have really fast cars and we will get more wins.
— Chase Briscoe (@chasebriscoe) June 7, 2020