Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS)
Friday, February 14, 2020
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 98 Highpoint.com Ford Mustang — WHAT IS YOUR PLAN GOING INTO THIS RACE? “You can’t have a plan going into this race. It just doesn’t work. Even last year when we had Cole over here and having a teammate you try to work together, but at the end of the day it’s so hard, just because you put yourself in a bad spot or you can almost wreck both of you trying to work together, so it’s hard. Obviously, this year in our situation we’ve only got two Fords in the field, so it’s gonna be hard from a manufacturer’s standpoint. The Cup guys, it seems like manufacturers are really loyal, where on the XFINITY side I don’t think it’s as bad, but I’m curious to see how it plays out tomorrow.”
WHAT WILL BE SEE IN THE SERIES THIS YEAR? “I think you’re still gonna see kind of the same thing. I think you’re gonna have two, three or four guys seclude themselves from the rest of the field and, hopefully, we’re one of those guys. It’s hard to say until we really get to the mile-and-a-half stuff. Obviously, this place it’s really hard to tell anything, but when we get done with the west coast swing I think we’re gonna have a pretty good idea of who you’re gonna have to beat for the championship, and, like I said, I hope we’re one of those people.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE INDY ROAD COURSE? “For me, being from Indiana, Indianapolis is always special. I think there’s something a little more prestigious about running on the oval from a historic side of things, but the road course is gonna be a first for stock cars and it’s gonna be fun to be a part of that event. I’m excited to see how many fans come out now just for that because that weekend as a race fan you can see a dirt race on Wednesday night, watch a road course race that weekend and an oval race, so it’s gonna be exciting to see. I’m looking forward to it. I think that race is honestly going to probably be the hardest race to win all year just because you’re gonna have so many guys from different disciplines in really good equipment. Obviously, I feel like a lot of the Indy Car guys are probably gonna come over that have a lot of laps around that place, so it’s gonna be fun. The new thing, like the Roval has been good to me, so hopefully it’ll be the same. We’ll see.”
DO YOU THINK TONY STEWART WOULD RUN THAT RACE? “I don’t know. It would be cool to see him do it. Obviously, it would be cool for me to say I was teammates with him, but he’s so busy doing the sprint car stuff that it’s hard to say. He rarely gets to come to even watch our races let alone run in them, so it would be cool to see for sure.”
YOU SAID YOU FEEL LIKE YOU NEED TO WIN 8 TO 10 RACES. WERE YOU BEING SERIOUS? “Yeah, I feel like it’s kind of my make-or-break season. This is the first year I feel like I haven’t had that excuse of I don’t have the experience anymore because I finally have that. Ford has obviously spent a lot of money on me in the past and really trying to develop me and I feel like this is finally my time to show that I’m here to win races. Cole won seven last year and obviously with the big three guys going it opens up a lot more opportunities to win races and I felt like at the end of last season we were battling with them for wins quite a bit, so I feel like if we do our jobs, then there’s no reason why we can’t go win eight to 10 races. Obviously, I’m not gonna say it’s a failure if we win six or whatever, but I feel like we certainly, if we do our job right, we can win eight to 10 races and I’m confident with that statement.”
HOW MUCH DO MANUFACTURERS WORK TOGETHER IN XFINITY? “I don’t think it’s gonna be near as much. I think you might see a couple teams. I think the biggest one is Kaulig, if you look at those three guys, they’re so fast as it is that I think in the race they’re definitely gonna work together if they can. The same with the Junior Motorsports guys and the Gibbs guys. On our side of things with the Fords in general it’s just me and Cindric, so it’s really hard to get anything going if you’re just gonna race manufacturer-wise like the Cup Series has. I don’t think our race is gonna be necessarily as much manufacturer stuff as the Cup stuff, but I do think you’ll see some teams work together as far as like Kaulig and Gibbs and Junior Motorsports, so I’m curious to see how it plays out tomorrow for sure.”
DO YOU FEEL THIS IS A CHANCE TO LAUNCH YOURSELF INTO A CUP RIDE IN 2021? “Yeah, I think so. I was telling somebody else that I feel like this is my make-or-break year. If I go win eight or so races, then I feel like it shows that I’m ready for Sunday, but if I only win one or two race, then I’m probably out the door and not racing anymore.”
REALLY? “Yeah, I feel like at this point I’ve been here, this is my second year now and I should know what to do. I’m finally creeping up on 100 pavement races in my career, so I don’t have that excuse anymore of, ‘well, I don’t have any experience,’ so I feel like we can go win a lot of races and I feel like if I only win one or two it’s definitely a failure. We have the equipment to go run good and we ran good all last year, so there’s no reason we can’t go win a lot of races.”
WILL YOU RUN ONLY ONE FULL-TIME CAR ALL YEAR AND IS THAT A GOOD THING? “Yeah. Truthfully, me and Cole we were so different setup-wise and what we looked for in the race car that a lot of the stuff we did didn’t really correlate over to what he liked and what I liked. From that side of things, sharing information I’m not too worried about it. I think, if anything, it makes it where there are definitely a lot more parts for us now. Essentially, we have enough parts to run two cars full-time, so that’s nice just because you can focus on building new stuff knowing that you’ve got stuff sitting there. I don’t know. It’s hard to say. I don’t think the dynamic really changes. Me and Cole tried to help each other out as much as we could, but it’s hard on the race track to obviously help each other out, and, like I said, our setups were so different that it’s hard to really say.”
YOU DO HAVE GUYS IN THE ORGANIZATION YOU CAN LEAN ON FROM THE CUP SIDE, RIGHT? “Yeah, for sure. Harvick is somebody I talk to quite a bit and even Tony, and Cole as well. Cole, I’d always go to for driving stuff just because he’d been there and done it, and now he’s the most recent guy that’s run that stuff, so I’m sure we’re gonna still rely on Cole when we go places just as far as asking him what he looked for in the race car for the race because I felt like that was the one thing last year I struggled with is knowing what I needed to race good. It took me a little bit to figure out, so I’m sure we’ll still use that.”
ARE YOU ONE OF THIS YEAR’S BIG THREE? “Hopefully, I mean if there is a big three. Hopefully, there’s just one and it’s us. But, yeah, if there is a big three I’d love to be a part of it. Obviously, I feel like last year we were close to being in that conversation. If you look at just the last half of the season, we didn’t necessarily have the wins, but we were competing week in and week out and just in the playoffs alone I felt like we could have won four or five races, but weird stuff would happen. I definitely hope we’re a part of that conversation if there is a big three and hopefully we’re winning races and competing for wins. If you can do that, eventually you’re gonna win races.”
