Next week, it’s all or nothing for Chase Briscoe to keep his 2022 title hopes alive. (Photo: Stephen Conley | The Podium Finish)
HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Chase Briscoe got loose in Turn 2 on Lap 160 and smacked the outside wall, ending his race at Homestead-Miami Speedway and putting him in a must-win situation entering next weekend’s crucial Round of 8 cutoff race in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
Briscoe brought the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Mustang to pit road for his team to assess the damage. Unfortunately, they determined the damage was too significant to continue. Therefore, Briscoe parked it in the garage.
Starting the Dixie Vodka 400 in 19th-place, Briscoe never seemed to come to grips with the Florida racetrack after failing to score valuable stage points. He was very frustrated because the race-ending incident was something of his own doing and it places him in a tough spot heading to Virginia.
Day over for #NASCARPlayoffs driver @ChaseBriscoe_14 at @HomesteadMiami. pic.twitter.com/pIHVeSUh7l
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 23, 2022
“The driver just made a mistake,” Briscoe said. “I was really, really loose that run. We were really tight every other run. That green-flag run we tried to get really free on the other side of it and just started taking really hard.
“I was hanging on with everything I had. It felt like I was on ice. Honestly, I wasn’t even running hard. I was trying to just get to the caution.”
The 27-year-old Indiana native entered Homestead nine points below the cutline. A last-place finish in 36th and not scoring a single stage point means Briscoe will have to put it all on the line in next Sunday’s 500-lap showdown at Martinsville Speedway.
Prior to the disappointing result at Homestead, Briscoe was riding a hot streak of four consecutive top-10 finishes at Texas, Talladega, Charlotte ROVAL and Las Vegas. Since winning his only race of the 2022 season at Phoenix Raceway back in the spring, it’s been a season of ups and downs for the No. 14 team.
Totally let my team and everyone at SHR down today. Only one way to make it up to them next week at Martinsville.
— Chase Briscoe (@ChaseBriscoe_14) October 23, 2022
If Briscoe wants to make it past the Round of 8, he’ll have to restart the momentum he had before Homestead by taming the Virginia short track known as the “Paperclip.”
In playoff brackets, many people predicted the No. 14 Ford Mustang exiting the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs in the Round of 16 or Round of 12. Very few expected Briscoe to make this deep playoff run. In a way, he’s considered the only “underdog” left in the title hunt.
Briscoe will go to Martinsville with a 44-point deficit, so winning the race is his only realistic shot at making the Championship 4 in Phoenix, the same track that put him in the postseason.
“It is really unfortunate,” Briscoe said. “It makes our job easier next week I guess. We don’t have to worry about points. We gotta go to Martinsville and win.”
In three career Cup starts at Martinsville, Briscoe’s average finish is 19.3, with a best-finish of ninth in the spring race earlier this year.
