INDIANAPOLIS – For NASCAR Cup Series driver Chase Briscoe of Stewart Haas Racing, the Brickyard Weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway truly is, “Back Home Again, In Indiana.”
Briscoe, winner of the Pennzoil 150 in 2020, was the first NASCAR winner on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road course. Prior to that, NASCAR Xfinity competed on the famed 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval.
Briscoe played a key role at the end of last year’s Verizon 200 at the Brickyard in a race that ended up in quite a mess with Denny Hamlin and Briscoe having a face-to-face discussion on pit road.
On the final lap, Briscoe’s car collided with Hamlin’s Toyota, sending it off the course while he was leading the race in overtime. This came after NASCAR officials had ordered Briscoe to serve a penalty after his Ford cut through the grass in Turn 1 and re-entered the track side-by-side with Hamlin’s Toyota – an obvious penalty.
In the end, though, it was Allmendinger, a driver who led laps in the 2013 Indianapolis 500 driving for Roger Penske, who accepted the winning trophy from Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Penske.
It’s a race that Briscoe doesn’t need to replay or being reminded about.
“I don’t have to watch it,” Briscoe said. “I know what happened.
“I think there’s a lot of takeaways from last year. I felt like that was the one race that kind of changed my confidence level, just knowing that I was capable of performing at this level – leading laps and battling for a win.
“I haven’t watched the race back. I’ve seen the highlight a couple times, but I haven’t watched the race back going into this weekend or anything like that. I’ve tried to forget about it, truthfully, so I haven’t watched it back, but I definitely can remember a lot of that race, for sure.”
Briscoe is back and is hoping to win Sunday’s Verizon 200 at the Brickyard fair and square.
“Yeah, hopefully,” he said. “It’s nice to be home. Every other weekend I feel like I’ve got to get my GPS out just to figure out where I’m going, but this place I obviously know where I’m going.
“It’s nice to be home. I’ve got a lot of family here and a lot of friends here this weekend, so it was definitely close last year. Hopefully, we can seal the deal this year. I’m just excited to be home.”
Briscoe said he is going to stay in the Midwest next week before driving up to Michigan, site of next Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race.
“I’m looking forward to being up here finally,” Briscoe said. “I’ve had this one circled on the calendar for a long time and I’m just glad it’s finally here.”
Briscoe has already won a race this season and that locks him into NASCAR’s playoffs over the final 10 races of the season. Last year, he had to battle to the bitter end, pulling maneuvers many deemed questionable, because he was winless and not in the playoffs.
(Photo: Ivan Veldhuizen)
“Like last year here, for example, we had to win the race to try to get into the playoffs, so we just did whatever was best strategy-wise for that,” Briscoe explained. “Now with our points situation we’re still trying to win but our strategy may not put us in the best situation to win the race at the end. I think that’s really the only thing that changes this time around versus last year and having that win now versus not having one.
“Hopefully, we have a good weekend, but I don’t feel like I drive any different just because I have a win. I feel like it’s kind of been the same the whole time.”
It’s 85.2 miles from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to Briscoe’s hometown of Mitchell, Indiana. Prior to Briscoe’s emergence as a NASCAR Cup Series star, Michell was most famous as the hometown of “Original Seven” NASCAR astronaut Gus Grissom.
A chance to return to his hometown is something Briscoe doesn’t get to do very often, but he feels the community support.
“Ever since I started to run ARCA, it was mind-blowing how many people were into it just because I was from there,” Briscoe said. “I think that’s one reason why I put a lot of pressure on myself whenever I come here. There’s a lot of people that honestly probably aren’t even race fans, but they want to come and support me because it’s an hour away and I want to make them enjoy it.
“I do think that it’s pretty special coming from a small town. You just have that support. If I was from Indianapolis, for example, there are just so many people that a lot of people wouldn’t even care probably but being from Mitchell and I think it’s a population of 3,000 maybe, it’s a lot cooler for the small-town side. We had Gus Grissom, who was an astronaut. Terry Cole, who was a football player (at nearby Indiana University and later in the NFL). Hopefully, I can maybe be one of those names up there with them because in Mitchell that was a huge name.
“It’s humbling for sure, just the support not only from Mitchell truthfully, but just the whole county of Lawrence County has really gotten behind me and I’m definitely appreciative of it.”
As a youngster, Briscoe spent many days and nights at nearby Bloomington Speedway, a famed track located in Bloomington, Indiana.
As a child, he would wave a flag from his first-row seat on the front straight, imitating the actual flagman at the track.
“It seemed like that was my dad’s best track,” Briscoe recalled. “I was always taking a picture on the front straightaway. I mean, I pretty much lived at Bloomington Speedway every Friday night.
“I remember, it came up on my Facebook Memories just this week, the Indiana Sprint Week is going on this week and they’re at Bloomington tonight and I put, it was like 12 years ago, the Indiana Sprint Week show at Bloomington tonight is my version of the Indy 500 or the Daytona 500. That’s how much Bloomington meant to me.
“I was trying to go down there tonight to make it, because that was really where I grew up.”
The first time Briscoe came to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, he was actually at the sold Speedway Monograming store that was run by Jim Bob Luebbert. That store has since closed after the Indianapolis Motor Speedway purchased the property back in April.
“That’s where I got my first race uniform when I was seven years old,” Briscoe recalled. “I remember going over there, getting my uniform and then we came in here and drove around and saw it.
“And then my first race I came to I think I was probably about 10, but, yeah, I got my first-ever race uniform literally right there across the street. We just sold it a couple months ago, so it’s kind of reminiscent.
“When I was pulling in here, I was telling my mom and my wife. My mom remembered going. She’s like, ‘I remember how excited you were and how special that day was,’ so we definitely got a lot of connections to this place. I’ve probably been here for twenty-something races as a spectator.”
Briscoe’s first race at IMS was for the 94th Indianapolis 500 in 2010. He came to every Indy 500 through the 99th in 2015.
By then, his own racing career was taking shape and he had scheduling conflicts in NASCAR.
“I missed the 100th and I’m still mad I did it,” Briscoe said. “I’ve never seen this place 100 percent sold out and I know that 100th was and then now I can’t get up here, obviously, for the month of May, so hopefully maybe one day I can get up here.”
For any native Hoosier, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a special place. It’s part of the state’s heritage and history.
That is why race drivers from Indiana who get a chance to compete at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway experience something special.
“All week I’ve just been excited to get back to Indy,” Briscoe said. “Even when I got off the plane, I felt like I was back home.
“Literally, as soon as my foot hit the ground I was like, ‘All right, it’s go time. We’re here.’
“I’ve been waiting for this week all year long, so I think for sure there are butterflies every time you come here. But I tell everybody all the time if you grew up racing or in motorsports, you dream of getting to come to Indianapolis Motor Speedway and to have the privilege for that to be your hometown track and come here as a kid watching races, to me, it just makes it even more special.
“I think every driver in the field this weekend will tell you it’s special to be able to be here, but when you grow up literally an hour away and came here all the time as a kid it just makes it even more special.
“I got to see my heroes run around this place and dreamed of being on the other side of the catch fence and now I’m the guy on the racetrack that people are here watching, so it’s definitely special.”