Chase Briscoe is prepared for a bittersweet weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“I’m excited,” Briscoe stated of NASCAR competing on the oval. “It’s going to be cool. The truth that I get to run a Brickyard 400 is actually particular, and to do it with how every thing has performed out with Stewart-Haas Racing shutting down means so much to me attending to do it not less than as soon as within the 14 automobile.
“I cried on the driver intro ride-around deal on the highway course. I can’t think about what it’s going to be like on the Brickyard.”
The final time a Cup Collection race was run on the Indianapolis oval was in 2020, and it was with out followers within the stands due to the pandemic. A yr later, with its intermediate competitors missing and highway programs in favor, NASCAR moved each the Cup Collection and the Xfinity Collection occasions to the Indianapolis highway course in 2021.
Briscoe moved into the sequence as a rookie with Stewart-Haas that very same yr. An Indiana native (Mitchell), Briscoe grew up watching and attending races at Indianapolis. He plans to return dwelling nicely earlier than the weekend begins to see household and Friday, Briscoe will run a dash automobile race on the identical monitor he went to each Friday night time as a child.
“I haven’t raced there in 10 [plus] years,” Briscoe stated. “So, it’s going to be a cool weekend normally to run the dash automobile at Bloomington after which additionally get to knock off a bucket listing factor within the Brickyard 400.”
It hasn’t been misplaced on Briscoe that his first oval race at Indianapolis would be the first and final time he drives the No. 14 automobile on the speedway. Briscoe idolized Tony Stewart as a younger driver, and Stewart is now his automobile proprietor, having hand-picked Briscoe to drive the No. 14 Ford Mustang.
“It’s cool and it’s particular,” Briscoe stated. “That was one thing that didn’t even hit me till the week after the announcement got here out. We had been doing an interview with IMS and so they talked about that this may be the one time I’d get to run 14 there, and I didn’t even give it some thought. I bought emotional enthusiastic about it even then, and I talked to Tony a couple of week or two after, and I stated, ‘Hey, I simply did this interview the opposite week. That is going to be the final time the 14 with you proudly owning it runs at Indy,’ and I might inform it type of hit him, too. He didn’t actually take into consideration that.
“It’s going to be a particular weekend. It’s going to be a tragic weekend, in truth, however it’s particular. As a child, when you had informed me I get to run a Brickyard 400 driving for Tony Stewart, I’d have by no means believed it. It’s positively a cool alternative. It’s one thing that I’m going to ensure I get plenty of footage of — and hopefully, plenty of footage kissing the bricks on the finish.”
Stewart pertains to Briscoe’s enthusiasm in regards to the weekend forward. The 2-time Indianapolis winner sees the entire connections and finds it becoming that all of it comes collectively this yr.
“There’s plenty of custom there,” Stewart stated. “A.J. [Foyt] was my hero, and Chase says that I used to be his hero, which type of completes the circle of how particular Indy is and the way particular the 14 is to us. I’m excited for him. This isn’t going to be his final one [but] it’s going to be our final one.”
