INDIANAPOLIS – Pace week at Indianapolis Motor Speedway means the return of HighPoint.com to Chase Briscoe’s Ford Mustang. It’s a partnership that began in 2020 after a chance meeting in Las Vegas.
After signing on to sponsor Briscoe’s NASCAR Xfinity Series efforts in 2020, HighPoint has appeared on his Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) car every year since, including for Briscoe’s 2020 win at the Brickyard.
As a child growing up in Mitchell, Indiana, Briscoe dreamed of going from the dirt track to the Indy oval, just like his hero and Indiana native Tony Stewart. Though the 2020 win didn’t come on the iconic 2.-5-mile oval, it was one for the record books as Briscoe became the first driver to win a NASCAR race on the 2.439-mile, 14-turn Indy road course.
A lot of Briscoe’s childhood was spent sitting at the back of a dirt hauler watching his father Kevin Briscoe and grandfather Richard Briscoe work on Sprint Cars.
“I don’t remember those moments from when I was that little, but I’ve obviously seen the pictures and it’s cool to look back on that and see me being around the track with guys that are legends in the dirt world,” said Briscoe. “I remember probably around when I was four or five, maybe six years old, always going to the racetrack and playing. It was just normal to be there, so these are memories that Brooks won’t necessarily remember. But I’ll definitely remember this, similar to how my mom and dad do. Getting to see him in all of these different scenarios and experiences and how into racing he is right now has been a lot of fun for me. He is very aware of what is happening at the racetrack and pays attention to every little thing, so these are times that I’m enjoying now and can’t wait to tell him about when he’s older.”
Briscoe watched Stewart pilot his NASCAR Cup Series car on Sundays before he headed back to the bullrings to compete in his dirt car. Stewart, the Brickyard 400 winner in 2005 and 2007, ran several races against his father Kevin, giving the youngest Briscoe plenty of time to learn how best to emulate his hero. When Stewart won at Indy, he climbed the fence, so Chase Briscoe climbed it, too, in 2020. He kneeled in front of the Yard of Bricks in his HighPoint.com firesuit and finally took his turn to kiss the bricks as he had dreamed of doing as a kid growing up in Mitchell.
“One of my first racing memories is going to get my first firesuit. It was across from the tunnel in turns one and two at Indy,” said Briscoe. “The guy’s name was Jim Bob Luger and he would do embroidery on uniforms. I remember going there, getting my first uniform, driving up to the end to get our first Quarter Midget, and racing in Indy, for my first-ever race. So, I just felt like every time you were going to Indy, it meant you were going to get something racing-related. As a kid, I didn’t really go to Indy outside of that, so it was always about racing. The first time I ever saw the speedway, I remember just being blown away by how big it was.”
The 2020 season continued with a playoff berth that carried all the way to the championship race in Phoenix. Briscoe didn’t earn the title that year, but the support from HighPoint.com allowed Briscoe to continue chasing his dream as the next driver of the No. 14 Ford Mustang in the Cup Series.
Briscoe’s first visit to Indy in 2021 as the driver of the No. 14 first piloted by his idol Stewart was nearly a win for the SHR team. He qualified second, his best qualifying effort of the year, took the lead on lap two of the race, and finished the first stage ninth. Briscoe struggled late in the race, but a series of restarts during the closing laps put Briscoe back in contention. Restarting third for the second attempt at a green-white-checkered finish in overtime, Briscoe was shoved off track going into turn one. He returned to the track and made a move on leader Denny Hamlin to take the top spot, but Briscoe wasn’t aware he was under penalty for not following protocol in his return to the track. He made contact with the leader and was parked for the final lap of the race. He had come so close to returning to victory lane at Indy, but his move had angered Hamlin, who felt Briscoe had been too aggressive. Briscoe stood his ground while Stewart watched on with pride.
In the 2022 edition of the Verizon 200 at the Brickyard, Briscoe started third and won the first stage. After pitting, the HighPoint.com team struggled to make its way back to the front and the result was a 23rd-place finish.
Prior to making his third Cup Series start at Indy on Sunday, Briscoe will make the two-hour drive to Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, to compete in the Superstar Racing Experience’s Thursday Night Thunder. He’s competed at the Eldora half-mile dirt oval four times – three in the NASCAR Truck Series, earning heat race wins in 2018 and 2019, and earning the golden shovel as the feature winner in 2018.
“Eldora, in general, is special to me. Growing up as a kid in dirt racing, Eldora was kind of my version of Daytona,” added Briscoe. “If you got to race at Eldora, that meant that you’re a hard-core dirt guy, especially if you could win there. So, for me just getting to run Eldora is special, but the biggest draw for me to run SRX was just the fact that I’ve never been able to race against Tony (Stewart). I felt like this would be my only opportunity to ever do that in my career and that’s why I pushed so hard to keep wearing them out about doing it. I knew that opportunity was getting smaller and smaller and I just wanted to be able to say I’d done it at some point in my career.”
Last year, he competed in Stewart’s Eldora Million Late Model race. What sets this visit apart from the others is that, for the first time in his career, Briscoe will compete against his childhood hero.
“I’ll try not to do what I did at Bristol Dirt the first year,” said Briscoe. “I would rather not get punched by Tony. But obviously, I feel like I need to go beat him just from a job security standpoint. If there’s going to be anybody I race with more respect than anybody else, it’s going to be him. It’ll be fun just to get out there and finally share the racetrack with him. It’s crazy to think how many times when I was growing up that I pictured driving his car and that I was him. Now, to finally share the racetrack with him is going to be really special for me. Hopefully I can go and beat him. But regardless, it’s going to be a really cool moment for me. I’m sure it doesn’t mean absolutely anything to him, but for me it will mean a lot.”
