Hot off the heels of a 2022 campaign where he landed his first Cup Series win at Phoenix Raceway on his way to a Round of 8 berth, Chase Briscoe fizzled out in 2023, failing to find victory lane and missing the Playoffs.
Rumors swirled about the future of Briscoe’s employer, Stewart-Haas Racing, in the offseason, making an already-stressful season ahead even more daunting. The 29-year-old racer could be fighting for his future as a NASCAR Cup Series driver.
Chase barely scraped into the main event at the season-opening LA Clash before scrapping his way to a hard-earned seventh-place result. He worsened his starting spot for the Daytona 500 by falling two spots in the Duels, rolling off the grid 20th for the 66th running of the Great American Race.
Never a strong superspeedway racer, Briscoe bided his time in an attempt to care for his equipment, sensing that a major crash could take out most of the field was on the horizon. With less than 10 laps to go, that major crash commenced when Brad Keselowski’s machine got thrown back into the field.
Chase managed to brush a few cars and escape with just mild cosmetic damage, but because the final dash to the finish was cut short on the final lap, the #14 team settled for 10th to open up 2024.
When the Cup Series made their way to Atlanta, Briscoe secured stage points and looked poised to make a run at the win with about 25 laps to go. Taking a run down the backstretch from Bubba Wallace, Briscoe made it four-wide going into turn 3 before clipping the front fender of Denny Hamlin’s Toyota.
The contact sent the #14 around, collecting Hamlin and knocking them both out of contention. A mediocre week in Las Vegas gave the team a chance to rebound at Phoenix where Briscoe delivered the team their first single-digit finish of the season, rounding their day out in 9th.
Back-to-back 13th-place finishes at Bristol and COTA preceded an 18th-place effort at Richmond, allowing the Indiana native to capitalize in Martinsville where his third top-10 of the young season vaulted the SHR car into the 12th in the points.
Feeding off of that momentum, Briscoe mounted a charge at Texas. After rolling off the grid in fifth, the #14 team recovered from a tangle with Bubba Wallace to open the final stage to end a rollercoaster race in sixth.
Chase continued his recent streak of good luck at Talladega where he got spun through the trioval grass on the final lap. Normally, this isn’t a great thing to happen, but the Hoosier kept his foot in the gas while cars smashed into one another on the track, eventually skidding across the line in 12th.
The #14 team’s good fortune faded the following two weeks at Dover and Kansas as they failed to reach the top-15, but a formidable run at Darlington netted the Mahindra car its first top-5 of the year.
While Briscoe achieved success at each of the next four tracks at various points in his career, they weren’t kind to him in 2024.
After coming inches away from earning his first Coca-Cola 600 victory at Charlotte in 2022, Briscoe struggled mightily to a 25th-place result. To make matters worse, Stewart-Haas Racing confirmed that 2024 would be their final season in the NASCAR Cup Series, leaving Briscoe without a ride at the end of the year.
Also in 2022, the #14 landed the pole for the inaugural Cup race at Gateway, but it wasn’t as kind to him in his third visit where he came home outside the top-15.
Mired in the midpack at Sonoma the next week, Briscoe got turned around in the Esses by Austin Cindric, raking in a few other drivers in the calamity before his car came to a rest in the dead grass. His transmission later failed, relegating him to 34th.
A strong qualifying effort at Iowa wasn’t reflective of race speed as the #14 team lacked pace and ended the inaugural event in a disappointing 28th.
What was shaping up to be an even worse result in Loudon the next week quickly flipped when the track took on water after a rain storm, allowing several underperforming Fords to rise through the field. In an attempt to give SHR a win in its final season, Briscoe fell one spot short to winner Christopher Bell.
The result was a funny coincidence as Bell accidentally leaked that Briscoe would join him at Joe Gibbs Racing for 2025 to the entire media center earlier that weekend. The move would be formally announced in a press conference the following week.
As the Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway descended into Overtime, Briscoe suddenly found himself in contention after not running up front for much of the race. Though he was on the front row for the fourth and fifth restarts, he ran out of gas coming to the white flag, dropping from 3rd all the way to 21st.
Chase suffered a lowlight of the 2024 season at one of the sport’s marquee events on the Chicago street course when he overcooked the entry of turn 6 that ultimately led to him colliding with an unsuspecting Shane van Gisbergen that put the Kiwi out of the race.
A much quieter day at Pocono provided a solid return with a 15th-place result, but it was followed by three straight finishes outside of the top-20 at Indianapolis, Richmond, and Michigan put a damper on Briscoe’s hopes to make it into the postseason on points.
Not known for his superspeedway prowess, Chase managed to evade all the Daytona calamity to bring his Mahindra Mustang home in 14th, saddling him with a must-win scenario to make the Playoffs going into the regular-season finale at Darlington.
After asserting himself by starting on the inside of row 2, the Indiana native spent much of the night in the tire tracks of Kyle Larson, scoring 17 stage points and putting himself in position to capitalize as the Moon began to rise above the raceway.
It was like the race was reset for Briscoe when the field rolled to the green flag with 26 laps to go; he restarted on the inside of row 2 and still right behind Larson.
Chase rolled out of turn 2 on the bottom of Ty Gibbs in a fight for third. Coming down the backstretch, Larson fell back to Gibbs and Briscoe, getting split three-wide.
In one of the best moves of the entire season, Briscoe dove the #14 High Point Ford deeper into turn 3 on the apron than anyone had run all day. Somehow, the car maintained grip through the corner, and by the time the #14 exited turn 4, it found itself at the top of the pylon after passing leader Ross Chastain. A 3-for-1 discount.
It would’ve been easy to scoot away to victory after that, but a new challenger presented himself: Kyle Busch.
Busch was in the same position as Briscoe, needing a win to advance to the postseason. His #8 Chevy carried tires three laps fresher than the #14’s, and the NASCAR legend was blitzing through the pack.
The final 20 laps blossomed into a chess match at 170mph. Busch moved his car around, looking for any way by the High Point Mustang. An exhaustive 500-mile journey came down to two racers battling it out on one of the toughest tracks on the circuit for a final Playoff bid.
In a finish vaguely reminiscent of their 2020 Xfinity race at Darlington, Chase got the better of Kyle, crossing the finish line first for his second career Cup Series victory in one of NASCAR’s Crown Jewels. The win gave SHR a final victory in its final season and a chance at a third title.
Unfortunately for Briscoe, he followed Larson’s tire tracks a little too closely in the Playoff opener in Atlanta when the Hendrick driver lost control of his Chevy, hit the outside wall, and slid down the track. Larson’s car slumped into Briscoe’s path, leading to the Ford plowing through the Chevy’s rear end.
The next two races saw Chase rebound for big stage points at Bristol and Watkins Glen on the way to strong top-10 efforts that solidified his spot in the Round of 12.
From there, Briscoe failed to score another top-10 finish with Stewart-Haas Racing.
A poor showing at Kansas was marked by him causing the leader, Kyle Busch, to wreck late in the going as Busch attempted to put Briscoe at lap down. The #14 team got swept up in crashes at both Talladega and the Roval that removed them from title contention.
His fourth consecutive finish outside the top-20 at Vegas preceded a pair of top-15s at Homestead and Martinsville before a terrible run at Phoenix ended his tenure in the #14 with a 29th-place finish.
What Went Wrong
This section will be brief.
Stewart-Haas Racing was in the midst of closing their race shop, meaning they weren’t receiving the necessary support from Ford and their remaining staff throughout the season to make sure the cars kept going fast.
As a result, their performance suffered across their four-car squad, including Briscoe. Of his 15 top-10 starts, a whopping 8 of those came in the opening 12 races of the season, meaning they often failed to unload with pace.
The fact SHR was able to make the postseason at all and advance to the second round is testament to Briscoe’s skill, speed, and determination.
Looking Ahead to 2025
Briscoe signed with Joe Gibbs Racing to replace the retiring Martin Truex Jr. in the #19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry for the 2025 season.
Unlike his poor qualifying efforts with SHR in the latter half of 2024, the #19 team’s crew chief, James Small, has a penchant for unloading with speed and qualifying well. Briscoe won’t be starting as many races in dirty air as he has in his first few Cup seasons.
A few big questions remain for Briscoe and Joe Gibbs Racing as a whole. Can Briscoe rein in his aggressiveness and race more like the driver we saw at Darlington? Will Chris Gabehart’s promotion to competition director return JGR to their winning ways after missing out on victory lane for the second half of last season? Can Briscoe gel with the established talent at JGR? Will he and James Small be compatible?
My prediction for Chase Briscoe’s 2025 is that he will put in a number of great performances that show flashes of him being a multi-time race winner, but he will fall short of the postseason or victory lane by the end of the regular season.
That said, I suspect he will log a victory next year in the Playoffs, effectively playing spoiler to the Playoff field.
Races Chase Could Win: Homestead, Sonoma, Las Vegas fall
(Top Photo Credit: Matt Kelley/AP Photo)
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