Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS)
Friday, November 8, 2019
EVENT: Desert Diamond 200, ISM Raceway (Media Availability)
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 98 Ford Performance Ford Mustang – IS IT A MUST-WIN WEEKEND? “We don’t have to win, but obviously a win is gonna get way easier. If you look at Denny, he was 20 points to the good and after Texas he was 20 points to the bad, so I don’t think we have to win. It certainly helps if you win, obviously, but, really, your whole mindset changes after the first stage. If we get 8, 9, 10 stage points and something happens to Justin and he only gets one or two, well then that cuts the deficit in half so then you almost race a little bit different. I think the first two stages you’ve just got to go and literally try to score the max stage points you can and then from there is when the points situation starts coming in If you’re still 16, 15 points back, then obviously you’ve got to win the race. But if you can cut that deficit down to three or four points away, then you don’t have to win, then you’re just racing him. It just depends on the situation after the first two stages.”
DOES THIS ROUND HAVE A LOT OF REGRETS FOR YOU? “Yeah, I was telling people the other day after Kansas I was obviously frustrated and upset, but I felt like we were still gonna be fine. I felt like with our speed we were gonna be fine getting to Homestead still. We can still go run top five the next two races, if not win one, and after Texas then everything that went down at Texas makes Kansas sting a lot worse and makes me even more mad. There’s a lot looking back on what could have been different, and even at Texas last week in hindsight we probably should have just pitted whenever we got in the wall. It was just a thing where at the time we felt like we made the right decision. Me and my crew chief were talking and we’re pretty sure the splitter is what ended up flattening the tire. If we would have come down, we didn’t even think the splitter was an issue, so we probably would have had the same issue regardless. I don’t know. There’s a lot of things we could have done different. Obviously, the lapped car situation could have went way different and we probably wouldn’t be in the situation we are right now, but those are the cards we were dealt and we’ve got to deal with those.”
SO IF YOU PITTED YOU WOULDN’T HAVE KNOWN TO LOOK AT THE SPITTER? “Yeah, we were looking for tire rubs and the splitter was far enough off the ground that we didn’t think it was gonna be an issue, but as soon as we went we think what happened is when I hit the wall it broke the splitter bar, so then when we started going it just flattened the tire. In pictures at caution speed the splitter looked like it was gonna be plenty good, but as soon as we started going fast it obviously wasn’t good enough to hold it. You never know in that situation if we would have got it right or not, but we talked about it this week and we probably wouldn’t have even looked at that, so we probably would have had the same issue regardless. That’s just part of it.”
SHOULD NASCAR DO ANYTHING ABOUT INTENTIONAL CAUTIONS? “It depends if you’re the guy that brings out the intentional caution you hope they don’t do anything about it, but it’s so hard. Anything judgment call in racing I feel like is so hard, whether it was with that intention or not, not only the intentional caution thing, but the yellow line rule. It’s such a judgment call that it’s really hard to say what goes into it. I don’t know. It’s hard to say it’s 100 percent an intentional caution, well then it’s still a judgment call. Who knows what really happened? It’s really hard to judge those. I feel like I saw what happened with the Bubba situation, but you really don’t know. It’s hard to say.”
IS IT HARD TO MAKE THOSE DECISIONS OR WILL THEY HANDLE IT BEHIND CLOSED DOORS? “I don’t think it’s gonna come out in public. I think it’s a thing where there’s a certain etiquette you could say. Even going back to last week at Texas when I had that flat right-front tire, looking back on it I should have drove it straight into the wall and the caution would have probably came out, but instead I kept it off the wall. I feel like that’s a little bit different than spinning out, but I think NASCAR is gonna handle it behind closed doors. That’s how I would handle it if I was in that situation. It’s hard to say. They might not, but I feel like it obviously changed how Larson’s race went. It changed a playoff guy’s situation. I think I saw somewhere where Kyle said it would be different if it were in the regular season or something like that and not in the playoffs, where it could affect his whole season. It’s hard to say what’s gonna happen, but that’s how I feel about it anyways.”
DOES LOSING PRACTICE TIME HURT? “Absolutely. I feel like this is one of my two worst race tracks, so I don’t have a lot of laps here in general. That’s why I feel like I don’t really get around here very good in general. I feel like of all places to lose practice time this is probably the worst one to do it and the timing of it doesn’t help our situation either. I think practice time hurts more here than anywhere else all year long. It’s tough. Fifty minutes in general isn’t a lot of time to go make runs and come in and make changes, and especially I still don’t necessarily know the direction we need to turn our car to, so our practice plan is we’re gonna go run two 10-lap runs and I better tell them the right way to go for second practice because once you’re committed to that you don’t really change after the second practice. I’m gonna go and run our first practice and try to get as many laps as we can and then in between I’m gonna go and stand on Harvick’s trailer and get a radio and try to just learn as much as I can from them guys, so I can try to help our team.”
DO YOU FEEL THE PJ1 WILL AFFECT PEOPLE AND LEAD TO MISTAKES? “The PJ1 stuff, I feel like once it gets hot you can’t even spin out in it, but when it’s not hot it’s obviously really slick I haven’t even seen it on the race track yet. I’ve seen pictures, but I haven’t seen it visually once I’m driving around it. I know in pictures it looked like it was pretty high, but until you get out there. For example, in the pictures I don’t even think in turns three and four we’re gonna run that high. I feel like in one and two there’s a chance you might in the dead center of the corner, so I don’t know how much it’s really gonna affect us. I think the Cup race has more of a factor than our races because the Cup race has such long green flag runs that it establishes that kind of heat, whereas in our races we don’t really have that long of a green flag run. The other thing me and Logano were talking about last night is this place has so much dust compared to everywhere else we go and what happens when that dust gets on top of it? We don’t have it anywhere else, so there are a lot of factors. I feel like for the most part it’s not gonna be that big of an issue.”
WHERE WERE YOU AND JOEY? “We flew back from SEMA last night together. It was me, him and Blaney and Cole, so after we got off the plane I asked Joey if there were any tips he had about this place because I kind of struggle here and we just got to talking about the PJ1 and how they placed it down. He brought up the dust issue and I didn’t even think of that. I don’t know if the dust is gonna be an issue, but this place is one of the few places we go to where if it’s dry for just 20 minutes without anything on the track the first car out is blowing all kinds of dust, so what happens when that stuff sticks on top of the PJ1? I don’t think it will make that big of a difference, but you never know.”
HOW WAS YOUR HOMESTEAD TEST? “We were unbelievable, we felt like. A lot of guys go and test and you’re like, ‘Oh, man. We’re so good,’ and then you go back. I know Jeff Burton was at the test and I heard on the TV broadcast I heard him talk about how good he thought we were. Typically there fall off is around a certain time over a 40-lap run and we were two-tenths better than that, so I felt like if we can get to Homestead, we have a legitimate shot to win the championship. Phoenix is one of my worst race tracks, whereas Homestead I feel is one of my top two best race tracks, so I want to take advantage of when the championship races at Homestead because I know that it’s my best opportunity to win the championship. I really want to get to Homestead and it’s gonna be sickening if we don’t make it and then I go there and win the race because that would be twice – once in the Truck Series it happened to me and then once in XFINITY.”
