Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS)
Thursday, June 18, 2020
EVENT: Unhinged 300 Talladega Media Availability
Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 98 Ford Performance Racing School Ford Mustang, is coming off his third win of the season after taking a double overtime triumph last weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Briscoe held a Q&A session today and discussed his season’s success to date and what his expectations are for Saturday’s scheduled race at Talladega.
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 98 Ford Performance Racing School Ford Mustang – HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT NOT HAVING PRACTICE FOR TALLADEGA? “I think as a driver it’s probably the easiest place to go and not have practice as far as just turning laps, but I think it is nice to have some practice, especially there just to know what your car can and can’t do. It seems every time you go superspeedway racing your car always has strengths and things it doesn’t like to do, so just having that practice allows you to kind of get a feel for what your car’s strengths are and where you can use those in the race. So not having practice will make that a little bit more difficult, just not knowing at the start of the race, but this makes that beginning of the race more critical, I think, just so late in the race you kind of have in the back of your mind what your car is really good at and what it’s not good at, and also how aggressive you can be in making moves. It seems like that place if your car might be too tight to make certain moves or too loose to make certain moves, so just knowing what your car can do in practice is always nice, but I think all the teams are pretty good as far as hitting their heights and everything like that, it’s just from the driver’s side I think getting in the pack at Talladega and Daytona in practice is always nice, just so you have a general idea of what your car is good and what it’s not good at.”
WITH ONLY ONE OTHER FORD IN THE FIELD WHEN DO YOU START LOBBYING PEOPLE TO WORK WITH YOU? “Obviously, with the COVID thing we’re not even really allowed to go out and lobby at the track. Normally, I would do that at driver intros or whatever, so that will definitely change a little bit, but I feel like the XFINITY Series is not near as manufacturer driven as the Cup Series is as far as who works together and who doesn’t. I feel like me and Cindric try to help each other out the best we can, but there are certain situations in the race where sometimes it hurts you to go help another guy. I think you see kind of the teams working together more than the manufacturers, but I think you always have in the back of your mind a certain group of guys you can work with. Austin is obviously a great example and then, for me, a guy I’ve always in the XFINITY Series enjoyed working with on the superspeedways is Josh Williams. It’s somebody I feel like I can trust. He’s always got a good car, so, yeah, you kind of lobby a little bit, but you almost just let your car do the talking there because if your car is fast, everybody is gonna want to work with you.”
YOU HAVE GREG ZIPADELLI ON THE BOX THIS WEEKEND. WILL HE BE THERE FOR THE NEXT THREE RACES AND HOW HAS YOUR COMMUNICATION BEEN EARLY ON? “Obviously, Zippy is doing it this week. We don’t know about the next two races just because he’s got so much on his plate over on the Cup side it makes it hard for him to do both, so, right now, the plan is to have him do it at Talladega. I think that’s kind of all of our goal is to have Zippy do it for the following two races, but it’s just depending on what he’s got going on on the Cup side. That’s obviously priority number one for him, but it was neat. It was different in the sense of how Zippy communicates and some of the lingo that he uses in his demeanor compared to Boswell, but both of them are really good crew chiefs. Obviously, Zippy has won plenty of races and championships in the past, so we know he’s more than capable of the job. It’s been good. I think at the same time it’s the perfect opportunity for an interim crew chief to step in just because of the situation. We’re not practicing or anything, so Boswell is still setting the car up and everything at home. He’s just not allowed to go to the race track, so all Zippy has to do is really call the race and get the car through tech. It’s kind of a blessing in disguise for us if this was gonna happen just because of the situation we’re in. The only place that it will even affect us is Indy, where we’ll have practice, but we’re confident Zippy is more than capable of doing the job and that’s the great thing about Stewart-Haas. We have so much depth all across the company. If something happens, we always have a perfect backup plan.”
ARE YOU MISSING INDIANA MIDGET WEEK? “Yeah, I’m definitely missing it. I never really raced in Midget Week. I always ran Sprint Week, but I’ve been watching the past two nights. I’m looking forward to watching the next couple of nights, and I wish I could be there but the competition has been really good. It’s been fun to watch all the racing and hopefully I can get back in one here soon. It’s been really good racing. It’s fun to see Kyle be as dominant as he is and see if anybody can beat him.”
ARE YOU GOING TO GET A HALL PASS ANYTIME SOON? “I don’t know. That’s for the people who make way bigger decisions than me. Hopefully. I would like to go run something, but we’ve been so busy on the NASCAR side it’s been nice just because we don’t have any off weekends. I think if we had off-weekends it would be a little bit different, but with how busy we are right now I really don’t feel like I’ve missed very much just because we’ve been racing so often.”
WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO WIN AT INDIANAPOLIS? “To win at the Brickyard would mean everything to me. We’ve been practicing on the sim at the Brickyard since February. We’ve been trying to prepare for that race just because of how much it means to me personally and it’s a new race for everybody, so we’re trying to get as many notes as we can. To win at the Brickyard would mean the world to me. I wish there were obviously fans there. It would make it that much sweeter if we were able to win in front of the hometown crowd, but whether it’s on the road course or the oval or the dirt track, whatever, if you win at Indy that’s the pinnacle of racing. It’s the most prestigious track in the world in my opinion, so to get a win there in anything would be huge. If Zippy ends up being the crew chief at Indy, it would be pretty dang cool to win with Zippy at Indianapolis after watching him and Tony do it for those two times that he did it. I remember as a race fan and as a little kid watching them guys win Indy and how cool it was, so to be able to win for Tony at the Brickyard would be icing on the cake.”
WAS IT HARD TO ADJUST TO KNOWING ZIPPY IS YOUR CREW CHIEF NOW AS OPPOSED TO WHEN YOU WERE A FAN? “Not really. Once you get in the car you kind of zone it all out. Tony could be on the box and once I’m in the car and we’re racing I’m not thinking about that stuff. Once you get inside of the race car, I don’t know, you just don’t think about those things, whether Zippy is on the box, Tony or whoever. I’m not thinking about that, but before the race even before Zippy was my crew chief if Zippy or Tony come around I’m still that kid that looked up to them growing up, so, yeah, it’s cool but once you put the helmet on you kind of forget about all that. You’ve got a job at hand and that’s what you’re focused on and you’re not worried about who is watching.”
WHERE HAVE SUPERSPEEDWAYS BEEN IN TERMS OF TRANSITIONING FROM YOUR DIRT BACKGROUND? “Growing up dirt racing is the complete opposite of anything superspeedway racing. I don’t think anything really relates to that other than if you went go-kart racing on a big track or something, so it was definitely a challenge at first and still it. It’s a place anytime I go to Daytona or Talladega I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t nervous just because of what can happen. You know there are gonna be big wrecks and you just hope and pray that you’re not in one of them, but I used to despise even going there. I went there with the mentality I was just gonna ride around and hopefully the wreck would happen and I wouldn’t be in it and maybe run top 10. Honestly, I wasn’t going there to win. I was just there making laps essentially, and then last year I talked to Dale Jr. for probably 45 minutes on the phone and it really changed my entire outlook on those races and after I talked to him I think I ran second, fourth and I can’t remember the other one, and I’ve led a lot of laps and been up front and in contention and just talking to him and how he approaches those races and his mentality and just how you race them was a total 180 opposite of how I was normally going there, and I felt like ever since I talked to Dale it’s been night and day difference on my outlook going to the races. I’m still nervous when I go there, but, typically whenever I get done and it’s over I’m like, ‘Man, that was a lot of fun. I’m ready to keep going,’ where in the past I would have never said that. So just talking to Dale it’s incredible how good he was at those races. A lot of people say for the most part that those races are luck, which there is a certain variable of that, but typically you see the same guys winning at these superspeedways, whether it’s Denny or Joey or Brad or any of those guys, and even Dale back when he was racing, so it’s not a coincidence that they get lucky necessarily that many times. There is something to it and talking to Dale, I feel like, really opened my eyes up a lot.”
WHAT WAS THE BEST PIECE OF ADVICE HE GAVE YOU? “I don’t want to give it away because then guys will start using it against me. I think the biggest thing was just be the aggressor. In the past, I would go there and, like I said, I would ride around in a sense and just try to stay midpack or the back of the pack and let guys eliminate themselves, where now I go there with the mentality I’m gonna try to lead every single lap. If I get hung out to dry or whatever and I fall back to 30th, that’s fine I’m gonna try to drive right back to the lead anytime I get any kind of a run whatsoever, so just having that kind of in the back of my mind I just feel like you almost approach it like you’re going go-kart racing. If you wreck, you wreck, but you’re going there to try to lead every single lap you can and it’s just a different style of racing. On the mile-and-a-half stuff that’s the mentality I use and there’s no reason why on superspeedways I wouldn’t use that same mentality trying to lead every lap.”
HOW WOULD IT FEEL TO WIN THE DASH 4 CASH THIS WEEKEND? “Hopefully we don’t throw it away like Atlanta, but the Dash 4 Cash I feel like this weekend is totally different than any other weekend. We always know we don’t have to win the race to do it, but this coming weekend we could literally run 25th and still win the Dash 4 Cash. I think there’s an added level of excitement for that reason and the intensity is gonna be even higher in the race, but my wife – if you’ve been following her on Twitter – she’s been talking a lot about a pool and she was pretty mad when I sped on pit road at Atlanta and gave it away. We’ve been talking a lot about building a pool and if I could end up winning $100-grand that’s definitely where it would go.”
