By Seth Eggert, Staff Writer
Stewart-Haas Racing’s Chase Briscoe rebounded twice in the Jockey Made in America 250 at Road America to score a top-10 finish.
Crew chief Johnny Klausmeier opted to bring Briscoe down pit road prior to the end of Stage 1. However, the Ford Performance driver drove through too many boxes and had to restart at the tail end of the NASCAR Cup Series field.
Briscoe spent much of the remainder of the race climbing back up through the field. Pit strategy aided the 26-year-old’s pursuit up the running order. After the final caution, he was running inside the top-10. Briscoe’s No. 14 Ford Performance Racing School / HighPoint.com Ford Mustang picked up positions after contact between Alex Bowman and Kyle Larson sent the two Hendrick Motorsports drivers plummeting through the field.
The closing laps saw Briscoe battling hard with Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry. He almost ran into the back of Hamlin’s Toyota entering turn five. As the duo battled, Briscoe’s engine briefly cut out. That ultimately dropped him from fourth to sixth when the checkered flag waved.
“I thought we were good enough to run fourth there at the end, but my engine shut off,” explained Briscoe. “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.
“Overall, it was a fun day. This place is a lot of fun when you are slipping and sliding around like that. I wish we could have been top-five but to leave here with sixth is a good day.”
Briscoe climbed through the field after getting caught out in qualifying. Both of his qualifying laps were not counted after cautions interrupted the session. Briscoe joined Austin Dillon, Ty Dillon, eventual race winner Chase Elliott, and Ricky Stenhouse Jr as drivers that were unable to complete a qualifying lap at speed.
The sixth-place finish is Briscoe’s second career top-10 finish in the Cup Series. It matches his career-best finish in the Cup ranks, which came at Circuit of the Americas earlier this season. It is also his 72nd career top-10 finish across NASCAR’s three national divisions.
The top-10 finish moves Briscoe up from 25th in the points standings to 23rd. He is 126-points behind the playoff cutoff, held by Kurt Busch. Briscoe is 453-points behind leader Hamlin.
Featured Photo Credit: Photo by NKP / NKP Photo