It occurs each fall.
In a means, it’s turn into predictable within the elimination period: the NASCAR Cup Collection postseason begins and with them, the favorites and headline makers take middle stage. However then, someplace alongside the way in which, a driver and workforce that had been neglected or written off earlier than the ultimate 10 weeks started emerges and makes a little bit of noise.
Chase Briscoe and Stewart-Haas Racing are these gamers within the 2024 postseason.
“General, it was an important evening for us,” Briscoe mentioned Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway. “Hopefully, folks will begin taking us critically. I in truth really feel like we will battle for the championship, so hopefully (this) proved that.”
Briscoe and the No. 14 workforce completed eighth at Bristol within the first elimination race of the postseason. It was their second consecutive top-10 end, and Briscoe averaged a strong sixth-place working place all evening, driving to as excessive as second place at one level. Of the 12 drivers who superior into the subsequent spherical, Briscoe is certainly one of six who earned two high 10s within the three races that made up the Spherical of 16.
On one hand, each driver believes he and his workforce have an opportunity to win the championship throughout an extended day of addressing the media on the Wednesday earlier than the postseason begins. It’s custom (each the mid-week media day and the refrain of optimism). It’s anticipated. And when Briscoe received the regular-season finale at Darlington Raceway to earn a postseason berth on the final minute, he started saying the identical factor.
Briscoe is acting at tempo because the contenders; he was the strongest automotive because the evening at Darlington wound down, and he rose to the event to make the strikes he wanted to get to the lead. He doubtless would have executed the identical at Atlanta Motor Speedway had he not run right into a wrecked Kyle Larson earlier than the top of the primary stage. After which Watkins Glen and Bristol have been each stable, as-they-should-perform days that netted him a mixed 79 factors.
On efficiency and tempo, Briscoe is getting the job executed. He additionally earned the seventh-most stage factors within the first spherical. So, in that space, the workforce ought to a minimum of be, as he mentioned, taken critically.
However there’s something else at work right here for Briscoe and his group. Stewart-Haas Racing is shutting down in seven weeks. It’s long gone a rumor, after which an early summer season joint assertion making it a actuality. It’s all the way down to crossing off days on the calendar.
Briscoe was a late entry into the Playoff image after profitable at Darlington. Matthew T. Thacker/Motorsport Photos
For the group to stay in championship competition, and out of the primary spherical, deserves kudos. It might be simple, and nobody would blink a watch, if the productiveness stage decreased at this level within the season and the motivation was arduous to seek out. Or if there was a mass exodus of staff every week as they sought their subsequent paycheck and profession chapter.
Maybe that may have occurred if Briscoe didn’t make the playoffs. Possibly the assets at Stewart-Haas can be drying up faster, and possibly Briscoe’s earlier issues about how arduous it might be to get vehicles to the monitor because the termination date approached can be the fact. As an alternative, primarily based on what Briscoe is displaying on the racetrack, it’s arduous to consider that the corporate will stop to exist in somewhat over a month.
“I really feel like we will beat anyone on any given day after we put it collectively from begin to end,” Briscoe mentioned. “Clearly, (at Bristol) we had some hiccups, however we have been nonetheless capable of have end, and that’s what this championship run goes to be all about, so go on to the subsequent one.”
The battle will get more durable from right here on out for Briscoe – and each championship hopeful. However he’s nonetheless bought a shot and that’s all that issues.
And in actuality, whether or not Briscoe wins the championship or not is not going to be the story. It’s a hit to have made it this far and at this level, Briscoe and Stewart-Haas are the sentimental favorites.
Why not root for a driver who refuses to give up? How can anybody not need to see an organization go to the space regardless of the unlucky and for these dwelling it, unhappy state of affairs they’re navigating?
“I feel our backs are up in opposition to the wall,” Briscoe mentioned. “No different workforce on this sport can relate to what we’re going by and simply how hungry all of us are, so I feel all of us need to exit as winners, and we simply know that we’re able to doing it after we put it collectively.
“I feel, for us, after we lastly did win at Darlington, we form of proved that to ourselves and simply the arrogance that has include that over the past three weeks has been lots.
“So, [we’re] wanting ahead to the subsequent nonetheless many races we’ve bought left.”
Have your self a postseason run, Briscoe and firm. You’ve bought a lot in your nook keen you to complete this on the best word.
