DOVER, DE. – With a 12th-place finish last Sunday at Talladega. Superspeedway, Chase Briscoe maintained his streak of quiet consistency, climbing from 18th in the NASCAR Cup Series championship standings four weeks ago to 12th entering Sunday’s Würth 400 at Dover Motor Speedway.
The driver of the No. 14 Mahindra Tractors Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Stewart-Haas Racing has scored seven straight top-20 finishes, with the last three being no worse than 12th. With 16 races to go before the championship cutoff, where only the top 16 drivers are eligible to compete in the 10-race title chase, Briscoe has a 23-point margin over 17th-place Kyle Busch.
The Würth 400 will start Briscoe’s fourth career NASCAR Cup Series at Dover. In three prior starts at the 1-mile concrete oval, Briscoe’s best finish is 13th, earned in May 2022.
Briscoe’s first Dover start was in 2017 in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, and he started strong by winning the pole.
“I’ve always enjoyed really fast racetracks where it’s just super-high commitment, kind of elbows up,” Briscoe added. “There’s something about it that just felt normal. We were really good there in the Truck. I had a wheel come off in the race, and we finished worse than we probably should have. We’ve been able to win there in other series. The Cup Series has been a struggle there, truthfully, but I’ve always enjoyed going to Dover. It’s one of those racetracks where, as a driver, it’s a lot of fun if you just embrace it.”
Briscoe’s stats in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Dover are far more impressive. In the stepping-stone division to the elite NASCAR Cup Series, Briscoe competed at Dover five times, earning a win, three top-fives, and four top-10s. His worst finish was 19th, earned in his first Xfinity Series start at the track in October 2018.
Briscoe’s NASCAR Xfinity Series win at Dover was impressive. On Aug. 23, 2020, Briscoe started sixth and led three times for a race-high 107 laps, including the final 13. He crossed the stripe with a 2.463-second advantage over runner-up Ross Chastain.
“I’ve always enjoyed racing at high-commitment places where it’s high-banked, and the more speed you can carry, the better,” said Briscoe. “Until then, Salem and Winchester were the only tracks I’ve run like that. Bristol in the Truck Series: I guess I hadn’t even run Bristol yet at that point in the Truck Series, so the only point of reference I had was Salem and Winchester, and I remember it feeling like a big Salem or Winchester. A lot of guys aren’t used to high-banked racetracks. I only had two starts on them, but sprint car-wise, I ran a lot of high-banked, high-speed racetracks, and it didn’t really freak me out. I feel like many guys probably go there for the first time, and if you grow up pavement racing, there’s not a lot that compares with that, so it can be very eye-opening. It’s just one of those deals that, as a sprint car guy, it makes it a little bit easier to get used to the speed, and I feel like you’ve seen many sprint car guys be successful there because of that.”
Before his time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, Briscoe competed for one season in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. In 2017, Briscoe ran one Truck race at Dover. It went well as Briscoe won the pole with a lap of 23.007 seconds at 156.474 mph. He then led three laps in the race before finishing 12th.
The high-banked, high-speed Dover oval harkens back to two other high-banked tracks Briscoe competed on as he climbed the racing ladder to the NASCAR Cup Series. Salem Speedway and Winchester Speedway, both in Indiana, provided Briscoe with a hint of what throttling around Dover’s 24 degrees of banking would be like. Salem is a .555-mile oval with 33 degrees of banking, and Winchester is a half-mile oval with 37 degrees of banking. Briscoe made three ARCA Menards Series starts at Salem and one at Winchester. In his three starts at Salem between 2015 and 2016, Briscoe won two poles (April and September 2016), led a total of 155 laps, and scored two finishes of sixth or better, with his best result being fifth in his debut at the track in 2015. In his lone ARCA race at Winchester in 2016, Briscoe dominated by winning the pole, leading the most laps (142 of 200) and by 1.132 seconds.
“I remember the first time I was at Dover, going out and being pretty mind-blown at how big the drop was, like down into the corner. I ran the simulator and watched the video, but you never get a full appreciation for it until you do it. I remember coming in after that first 10-or-so-lap run, huffing and puffing. I never breathed the first ten or so laps around that place. So, yeah, I would say that was my welcome-to-Dover moment. And honestly, every time you go there, it’s one of those same things where you forget how big the drop is and you forget to breathe on your first run. Every time you go to Dover, you have one of those welcome-to-Dover moments.”
Briscoe speaks about the difficulty of racing in Dover.
“I would say the biggest thing about the Cup car is that everybody is just so close,” said Briscoe. “In the lower series, if you’re fast, you can move around the racetrack and pass guys. Dover is one of the harder places to pass, guys. But the Cup car, everybody is so close on speed that it makes it really, really challenging. Track position is so important, and that’s where I probably need to do a much better job in the Cup Series. When I get track position, I need to be extremely aggressive as far as trying to hold it, but then just trying to figure out better ways to pass there. Especially in my Cup career, I’ve been one of the first guys to the top (of the track), which typically wears your tires out way more. It’s a short-term gain but a long-term loss, so just trying to understand what I need to do as far as passing guys would probably help me most in my Cup career there at Dover.”
What it takes to be consistently good at Dover in the Xfinity Series.
“I would say the biggest thing is the Xfinity car, which was the one car that was the most out of control at that racetrack,” added Briscoe. “You were really sideways all the time. The Truck has a lot of downforces, and the Cup car has a lot of downforces, but the Xfinity car just really fits my driving style around that place and just how you had to be elbows up and, at the same time, you had to be really patient at times, and you could search around the racetrack. I just really enjoyed that track in that car style from the first time we went there. I always had speed there, and that made it fun.”
Running a Dover from Briscoe’s perspective.
“You go down the straightaway, and it’s more banked than half the racetracks we go to, and you look down into turn one and see the elevation change,” Briscoe said. “You drive down in there, and it kind of reminds me of a roller coaster to a certain extent because it gets your stomach a little bit. The car gets really light and slams down into the ground super hard. You can feel your whole body compressed into the seat. And then you’re out of the gas, rolling, and you can’t even see the corner exit. You go back to wide open and hope you did it at the right time. Come back out of the hole and do the same thing going down into turn three. It seems like, for whatever reason, in turn, three, the drop-in feels a little more extreme. It’s a cool place. I always feel like if you can give anybody a ride-along in a two-seater to hook them on NASCAR and make them appreciate what we do, Dover is certainly the place.”
Dover is a physical race track.
“From your neck and core standpoint, I feel Dover is probably your body’s hardest track. And even mentally, you can’t take a single second off there, added Briscoe. “You’ve got to be on it at all times. I’d say it’s one of the top-five, top-10 hardest tracks, for sure. It’s always a challenge when you go there.”
Do you feel the seams in the concrete at Dover?
“I’ve never had any issues there as far as that goes. I always feel it’s rougher down the straightaways than it is in the corner, and maybe that’s because our car in the corners is so loaded up that you don’t really feel anything. But I don’t feel like it’s crazy rough by any means.”
Mahindra Ag North America is in its third year as the anchor sponsor for Briscoe and the No. 14 team after extending its partnership with Stewart-Haas during the offseason. The multi-year agreement with the NASCAR team co-owned by NASCAR Hall of Famer Tony Stewart and industrialist Gene Haas continues to feature Mahindra Tractors, a brand of Mahindra Ag North America, on Briscoe’s No. 14 Ford Mustang for the majority of the NASCAR Cup Series schedule. Houston-based Mahindra Ag North America is part of Mahindra Group’s Automotive and Farm Sector, the world’s No. 1 selling farm tractor company, based on volumes across all company brands. Mahindra offers a range of tractor models from 20-75 horsepower, implements, and the ROXOR heavy-duty UTV. Mahindra farm equipment is engineered to be easy to operate by first-time tractors or side-by-side owners and heavy duty to tackle the tough jobs of rural living, farming, and ranching. Steel-framed Mahindra Tractors and side-by-sides are ideal for customers who demand performance, reliability, and comfort. Mahindra dealers are independent, family-owned businesses located throughout the U.S. and Canada.
