MARTINSVILLE, VA. – The NASCAR Cup Series’ short-track attack resumes with a second straight race in Virginia, and Chase Briscoe is eyeing improvement after finishing 18th last Sunday at the .75-mile Richmond Raceway. Martinsville Speedway is next up for the driver of the No. 14 Mahindra Tractors Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Stewart-Haas Racing, and the .526-mile oval has been the site of a streak of front-running consistency for Briscoe that has improved each time he has turned a wheel on the paperclip-shaped bullring.
Sunday’s Cook Out 400 at Martinsville will mark Briscoe’s seventh career NASCAR Cup Series start at the venerable track. Since his Cup Series debut at Martinsville in April 2021, when he finished 27th, Briscoe had significantly improved. He finished 22nd in his return to Martinsville in October 2021 and has not finished outside of the top-10 in his last four Martinsville starts, finishing ninth (April 2022), ninth (October 2022), fifth (April 2023) and fourth (October 2023).
Briscoe comes into Martinsville with four straight top-10 finishes at the track. In his last four races there, he has improved – ninth, ninth, fifth, and fourth – and led 109 laps in last year’s spring race.
“I feel like Martinsville is one of those places where the more you run there, the better you’ll get. It’s such a unique racetrack,’ said Chase Briscoe. “It seems like guys, once they figure it out, they’re always good there. You look at Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon, and people like that, it’s one of those places where once you figure it out, it seems like your technique always works there. We’ve been really good at Martinsville every time we’ve gone there over the last two years, and it seems like we have probably done everything but win the race. We’ve led many laps and things like that, so hopefully this will be the time we can improve on our recent finishes – ninth, ninth, fifth, fourth – hopefully we can finish better, but would love to bring home a grandfather clock. It’s one of the more iconic trophies and we’ve been really close and almost close enough to where we could see it – see where we want to put it, we just haven’t been able to put it there, yet.”
Briscoe’s best Martinsville race as a NASCAR Cup Series driver came last April when he finished fifth. He started fourth, took the lead on lap 186, and paced the field for the next 71 laps. A series of green-flag pit stops jumbled the running order, but Briscoe came back to take the lead on lap 307, and he stayed out front for another 38 laps to bring his laps-led total for the race to 109, second only to his Stewart-Haas teammate Ryan Preece, who led 135 laps.
Martinsville is a physical race. Drivers hit the brakes hard at least 800 times, so your lower body gets a workout as much as your upper body.
“It’s really hard,’ added Briscoe. “I probably didn’t realize how hard it was until the last time we were there in the fall. After the race, I couldn’t even bend over to take my shoes off. I had to have my wife help me because my back was in so much pain from all the braking we were doing. It’s a tough place to run, and even mentally, it’s a place where you’ve got to be in your game. So Martinsville is probably overlooked a lot of the time, the physicality of it, just because the speeds and the G-forces are what we would have at other places. There’s a lot that goes on with your body at those races, so you definitely feel it the next day. Martinsville’s definitely gotten a little more challenging with the NextGen car because, before; you would leave it in fourth gear and just run the whole time in fourth. Now, we’re downshifting every single corner, and then upshifting down the straightaway, so you’re just busier inside the racecar. It definitely has made Martinsville more physical overall. Your arms are getting more of a workout, your feet are doing a lot more with the pedals and things like that, so there’s just a lot going on at Martinsville in a very short lap.”
Briscoe has three other Martinsville starts outside of the NASCAR Cup Series—one in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and two in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. In his lone Xfinity Series start at Martinsville in October 2020, Briscoe finished seventh. In his two Truck Series starts at the track, both in 2017, Briscoe finished 11th (April) and 19th (October).
Briscoe talks about the on-track contact at Martinsville.
It’s hard for me to say this would be OK or this wouldn’t be OK,” added Briscoe. “Once you’re in the moment, you kind of make up your mind as soon as it happens what you’re going to do to somebody else. It’s one of those deals where if you’re getting held up by a guy time and time and time again, you finally just kind of get fed up with it and you go and move him and go on. I feel like early in the race you try to give him at least a little bit of the benefit of the doubt, but anymore, it’s so hard to pass that as soon as you get to him, you try to move him and go on. It’s definitely evolved a lot over the last couple of years with the NextGen car.”
Briscoe doesn’t get worked up over things at the Martinsville track.
“I think it’s different for everybody,” Briscoe. “I don’t ever really get worked up, but I think there are some drivers who get worked up and just go ballistic, and that’s when it’s better if you just let it go and forget about it. You see some guys where somebody does them wrong early in the race; it just derails their whole race because they’re more worried about getting that guy back than just trying to run their race. I think it’s different for everybody. Everybody’s personalities and attitudes are so different that it’s a different answer for all. For me, it’s hard to say what you’ve got to do. If somebody does you wrong, you definitely have to get them back at some point just to stand up for yourself because, if you don’t do it and you let somebody walk all over you on the racetrack, they’re just going to do it time and time again because they know you’re not going to do anything about it, so you have to stand your ground.”
Martinsville pit road is a challenge, from navigating the curves to the tight boxes and all the traffic.
“Martinsville’s hard. It’s just so narrow on pit road, and there’s not a whole lot of room,” added Briscoe. “It’s always hard when you’re leaving your pit box there just because there are normally cars coming around on the outside line. It’s only two lanes wide, in general, so then you’re in the inside lane while those other pit crews are trying to change the right-side tires, and it’s really, really tight. And just with how slow the speed is, the RPM change is very tight, and that’s why you see so many speeding penalties at a place like Martinsville.”
Briscoe won the pole for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Martinsville in October 2017. He promptly led the first 39 laps and was a front-running fixture until he was collected in an accident on lap 138 of the 200-lap race. The winner that day was Noah Gragson, Briscoe’s current teammate at Stewart-Haas.
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 tractor 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.
