SONOMA, CA – The Save Mart 350k Sunday at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway is the second of five road-course races on the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series schedule. Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 14 Ford Performance Racing School Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Stewart-Haas Racing, finished 13th in the series’ first road-course race of the year on March 24 at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas.
After Sonoma, the next road-course race is July 7 on the streets of downtown Chicago. The last two road-course races were on Sept. 15 at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International and Oct. 12 at the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway Roval.
Sunday’s Save Mart 350k will mark Briscoe’s fourth NASCAR Cup Series start at Sonoma. In his maiden Cup race at the 1.99-mile, 10-turn road course in 2021, Briscoe qualified 25th and finished 17th. He improved on that effort in his return to the track in 2022, qualifying 15th and finishing 13th. In Briscoe’s most recent Cup, which started at Sonoma last year, he qualified 24th and finished 29th.
Despite the best NASCAR Cup Series result of 13th at Sonoma, Briscoe is a winner in Wine Country. On June 5, 2021, Briscoe dominated Sonoma’s ARCA Menards Series West race. Despite starting third, Briscoe took the lead on the opening lap and never relinquished the point, leading all 51 laps to take the victory by a whopping 3.110 seconds over his nearest pursuer, Dylan Lupton.
Briscoe has 20 career road-course starts in the NASCAR Cup Series, with five top-10 finishes spread across COTA (sixth in 2021), Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin (sixth in 2021), Watkins Glen (ninth in 2021), the Charlotte Roval (ninth in 2022) and the road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (sixth in 2023).
Briscoe has made 11 road-course starts in the NASCAR Xfinity Series – the stepping-stone division to the elite NASCAR Cup Series. Road-course racing in the Xfinity Series helped put Briscoe on the map when it came to his burgeoning NASCAR career, as he scored two road-course wins among eight top-10 finishes. At the inaugural race on the Charlotte Roval on Sept. 29, 2018, in what was Briscoe’s 14th career Xfinity Series start, the Mitchell, Indiana native scored his first Xfinity Series win.
Briscoe said afterward that he tapped into his dirt-track experience in wheeling his Ford Mustang to a 1.478-second solid margin of victory over runner-up Justin Marks. “It drove like a dirt track instead of a road course and felt like I was in a sprint car. I just tried to make sure the rear tires never spun. I had to give up a little time coming off the corner, but I’d make it back up on the straightaway, and that’s why I was always better at the end of the run.”
Briscoe’s second Xfinity Series win on a road course came in another inaugural race – the 2020 Brickyard 150 on the road course at Indianapolis. On July 4, 2020, Briscoe started 12th and methodically worked his way to the front, taking the lead on lap 24. He led five times for a race-high 30 laps to take the victory by 1.717 seconds ahead of second-place Justin Haley.
Despite the win during COVID restrictions, Briscoe was pleased to win at his home track in a car owned by Indiana icon Tony Stewart. “Everybody knows that my hero in racing was Tony Stewart. Climbing the fence was always his signature thing, and I just wanted to do it to get to drive for him and watch him win at the Brickyard. It’s not the same prestige as winning on the oval, but we still won at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It doesn’t matter if you’re racing on the oval, the road course, the dirt track or even the parking lot, it’s special when you win here. Growing up, coming here all the time, it’s unbelievable to think I just won here.”
In three road-course starts in the ARCA Menards Series, Briscoe has two top-fives, with his first coming in 2016 when he finished fourth at New Jersey Motorsports Park in Millville after starting the 67-lap race in 10th. His other top-five was his 2021 win at Sonoma
In Briscoe’s lone road-course start in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, he started 18th and finished seventh in the 2017 race at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in Bowmanville, Ontario.
Ford Performance Racing School adorns Briscoe’s No. 14 Ford Mustang Dark Horse this weekend at Sonoma. It is the only school to wear the Ford oval, and Ford is the only full-line vehicle manufacturer to offer product-focused experiential driving programs exclusively to the owners of its complete line of performance vehicles, from cars to trucks to SUVs.
