Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
NASCAR Zoom Media Availability | Wednesday, July 7, 2021
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 14 Ford Performance Racing School Ford Mustang — YOU ARE RUNNING THE TRUCK RACE IN KNOXVILLE AND THE CUP RACE IN ATLANTA. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT? “I’m definitely excited to get to Knoxville, the sprint car capital of the world, so excited to go there. I’m really excited to see how Knoxville races in the Truck Series. I think it’s gonna be a really good layout for the trucks and just kind of how the stock cars react on dirt. I think that will be a really good track. I Eldora is almost the perfect track for those, but if the track is prepped right, Knoxville could be something that we haven’t seen in a long time on dirt in the stock car with a big cushion and things like that, so I’m excited to get there. Anytime I can go run on the dirt it’s always a good time and it’s fun to go run with the Roper guys. They’re a small group, a really small team out of Texas and just a really fun group of guys to go race with, so I’m excited to get over there and hopefully give them a really good run and then obviously head back to Atlanta and see how we do. That’s gonna be the first time we went back to a track for a second time this year, so trying to just use that to our advantage and try to capitalize on that.”
DO YOU HAVE TO DO ANYTHING DIFFERENT TO PREPARE SINCE YOUR CREW CHIEF IS OUT FOR ATLANTA? “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think the preparation, at least from my side, doesn’t really change anything. I know from their side it will probably change a little bit just from a communication standpoint, but I’ve been in this situation quite a bit with Boswell last year and Zippy being on the box. It happened in the truck series when we had a tire come off, so I’ve ran without my crew chief quite a bit and it seems like I’ve always had a lot of success when that happens for whatever reason, so I feel like with today’s technology and the things that we have back at the shop with being able to communicate with the racetrack it’s really not as big of a deal as it used to be, especially with no practice. When you had practice, it would definitely make things a bit more challenging, but just showing up and doing the race I don’t think it’s necessarily — it doesn’t hurt your performance, I feel like, like it could if you have practice and all these things.”
SHR POSTED THE PHOTO OF YOU AFTER THE RACE. WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THAT? WERE YOU TOTALLY SPENT? “I was kind of bummed they posted it. It’s obviously not the greatest pic in the world, but I poured water on my head. Honestly, I wasn’t that bad after the race. I felt like I could have kept going. The biggest thing was just the heat. None of my cooling stuff really worked that race for whatever reason. My cool shirt didn’t and my helmet blower didn’t either, so I just turned it off for probably the last 30-40 laps. It was definitely hot inside the car, but from a physical side I didn’t feel like I was giving up anything, so I poured water all over my head. It was obviously a hot day in Wisconsin and it’s gonna be the same this weekend in Atlanta, so just trying to be as well-prepared as I can be from a hydration standpoint, especially with running two races.”
WHAT IS THE BENEFIT OF RUNNING BOTH RACES? “I grew up dirt racing, so, for me, anytime I can go back and run dirt, I want to do it. It’s something I really enjoy doing. It’s a passion of mine, so, for me, I want to be able to go and run the dirt races that NASCAR has and just, I guess, give my support of it because I think it’s something great for the sport. I think it’s something that we need in NASCAR is to have that gap in between the dirt stuff and the NASCAR world, so, for me, that’s something as long as I can always do it, I’m gonna go run every dirt race I can that’s in NASCAR and outside of that I just think you’re a better race car driver whenever you’re racing. Even last weekend, going and running the sprint car on Thursday night and then running Road America I felt like it just made me sharper. Even though the cars are totally different and the discipline is different, you’re always learning as a race car driver, so, for me, just being able to race as much as I can, especially with how we don’t have practice anymore — just getting any seat time is better than sitting at home in my opinion. So, that’s kind of the thought process in going to Knoxville and, like I said, I really enjoy dirt racing, especially in the truck stuff. It’s a lot of fun, so I’ll go over there and see if we can give the Roper guys a good run.”
WHY DOES NASCAR NEED THAT? “To me, at least in the Cup Series for example, the Cup Series guys are considered the best in the U.S. or wherever you want to say, and if they are the best I want to see them challenge every discipline. We have a short track. We have a road course. We have a superspeedway. We have a mile-and-a-half, and we didn’t have a dirt track for the longest time and growing up as a race car driver, you’re typically either a short track racer, a road course guy or a dirt guy. In the past, the dirt guys haven’t been able to go to their discipline and let other people try it. Instead, we’ve been going into other peoples’ discipline, so I just think it’s important to have that dirt race, or at least one, for that reason and then outside of that I think it’s just really good for the sport, especially these last couple years with Larson running as many sprint car races as he has and other guys going and doing that. I feel like you’ve seen more sprint car people that in the past wouldn’t really watch NASCAR, but now they do because they have people to cheer for or root for on the NASCAR side, and the same with NASCAR people that probably would have never watched a sprint car race, now they can watch guys that they watch on Sunday go race sprint cars at the local track or whatever and it gives them a reason to go that they probably wouldn’t have gone if it wasn’t for that. So, I think it’s just a really good crossover for our sport and sprint car racing or dirt track racing in general. The more fans that we can get, the better, I think, for all involved.”
WILL THIS BE YOUR FIRST TIME IN A CUP CAR AT NEW HAMPSHIRE IN A COUPLE OF WEEKS? “Yeah, I’m probably not the best guy to ask. I’ve only been there twice, once in a truck and once in the Xfinity car and it’s definitely, I wouldn’t say my favorite racetrack, but I don’t have a lot of experience there either. I don’t really know what to expect going into that weekend. It’s one that I would obviously love to have some practice at just to get more laps because it’s been over two years since I’ve been able to race there, so I’m sure that will be a little bit of a challenge. I’m excited that it’s a 750 race. It’s one of the low downforce races and I feel like as a company that’s kind of where we’re better right now and as a driver I just enjoy going and running the low downforce, high horsepower stuff more. It reminds me a lot more of the Xfinity car and it’s just easier for me to kind of translate over from the last couple years, so I think New Hampshire is always tough just because from a balance standpoint you’ve got to be free enough to roll through the corner, but you can’t be too loose in at least from what little experience I have there, so it’ll definitely be a challenge going up there and one I’m really looking forward to.”
HOW ARE YOU CHALLENGED AS A DRIVER AT ATLANTA? “I would say Atlanta is probably, to me at least, the hardest place to just go around by yourself. It’s just extremely challenging to do the same thing twice. The grip level is literally different from lap one to lap two, quite drastically truthfully, and it’s just a lot of hard work from a standpoint of the car never wants to do what you’re wanting it to do. It’s not gonna have grip. It almost feels like you’re on ice at all times and it would be like taking an exit ramp in the middle of an ice storm and you’re trying to drive it at 150 miles an hour. It just doesn’t want to stick. It doesn’t want to do anything you want it to do, and it just wants to slide you right off of it and it’s the same at Atlanta. It’s bittersweet that we’re not gonna have that anymore. It’s a great racetrack from a driver’s standpoint because it is so challenging and as a driver when you go to Atlanta you feel like you can make a difference, where some of these places we go you’re kind of stuck at what your car is, where Atlanta you can normally pick off a couple more spots if your car is off just by being able to kind of hang it out and find speed. So, it’s a really challenging place. Obviously, in the heat it’s even tough, just a lot less grip. From a physical side, I would say for all the ovals it’s for sure probably the hardest just because you are constantly working the wheel. It’s back and forth and you’re countersteering almost more than you’re turning left there, so it’s just a lot of work from the steering side of things and also the pedals — how much you’re on the gas, out of the gas, on the brake, it’s unlike any other mile-and-a-half we have and obviously going forward it’s gonna be unlike any other mile-and-a-half we have, but on a totally different spectrum, so it’ll definitely be a bittersweet weekend knowing that we aren’t gonna have that anymore, but I think fans and drivers alike are really gonna appreciate this weekend just knowing that it’ll be the last time we’re gonna be able to slip and slide around at Atlanta like we have in the past.”
HOW OFTEN DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE ABOUT TO CRASH AT ATLANTA OR YOUR BREATH GET TAKEN AWAY? “It really just depends on your car, but I feel like I’ve been there in Xfinity where I’m leading the race by quite a bit you’re still on the verge of crashing it seems like at any point. You’re just always out of control there, especially off of two and into three. It’s just all over the place. It’s really, really challenging and even with the high downforce stuff, it’s unlike anywhere else we go with the high downforce because you are slipping and sliding around and this shows how abrasive that racetrack is and how little of grip it actually has, so it’s very circumstantial to your car, I feel like. If your car is handling really bad, it’s every corner — literally the whole time you’re going around there except for the straightaway it feels like you can crash, but even when you’re really, really good there I feel like a guy who is leading the race, even Larson earlier this year, I’m sure he was still having to work hard even though hie was 15 seconds ahead and that’s the fun thing about going to Atlanta.”
WOULD THE KNOXVILLE NATIONALS BE SOMETHING YOU WOULD LIKE TO DO? “Truthfully, I didn’t grow up really wing racing. I bet I have less than 20 wing starts and I know going to Knoxville I would be out to lunch. Those guys are so good at what they do and, for me, I don’t really have any desire to go run big half-mile stuff. For me, I just enjoy doing the little bullring stuff, the real tight tracks. The half-mile stuff is just a different type of racing for me in the sprint car, so I enjoy the little bullring stuff. I would love to do more of that, but I won’t enter the Nationals. It would be something I would love to do at some point in my career, but, truthfully, with only having 20 starts in a winged sprint car I don’t feel like I would be doing myself any justice going there and trying to run, and even if I found a team I just feel like I wouldn’t be as best prepared as I could be if I showed up and I hadn’t raced a winged sprint car for three years until last week and you just can’t show up to that race without being on top of your game. So, maybe one year, like I said, I would love to run up there, but it definitely won’t be this year.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE PANIC AT THE BRISCOE DECKLID IN THE TRUCK SERIES AND HOW IT CAME ABOUT? “A lot of people probably don’t even know what we’re talking about, but I’ve been on Reddit now for probably two or three years and always been on the NASCAR Reddit and I would be on there and just read stuff forever and just read about the rumors coming out, or what’s going on in the sport, what the fan’s take is and I finally just decided to make an account and just started interacting all the time. I’m on Reddit probably more than any other app, I would say, especially from just a fan side of things, communicating. I’m in the most random things on the NASCAR Reddit just commenting a lot of the time. The moderators over there, this weekend at Knoxville, I guess I should back up a little bit, my Knoxville truck is sponsored by Circle B Diecast and you could spend money to get your name on the truck and I guess the moderators at the NASCAR Reddit wanted to put on there something about being from the NASCAR Reddit page and nascarasm had put something way back when, probably about a year-and-a-half ago or two years ago, like a fake concert poster with all the drivers names and instead of Panic at the Disco, he put Panic at the Briscoe, so the Reddit people thought it was pretty funny and decided they were gonna put it on my truck this week, so it caught me off guard. They told me they were gonna do something on there. I just figured they would say ‘Your friends from NASCAR on Reddit’ or something along those lines and I saw that on there and it’s bigger than everything else, so it’s pretty funny to have them on there and there are a lot of people that are on the sub Reddit that have paid to have their name on the truck, so hopefully I can give all of them a really good run this week in Knoxville. It would be cool to get it in Victory Lane, for sure.”
ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO USING ATLANTA AS A TEST TO SEE IF SHR IS GOING IN A BETTER DIRECTION COMPARED TO WHAT YOU HAD THERE IN THE SPRING? “Yeah, I think it’s definitely a good reference point to be able to now go back to a track for the second time and see if we’ve improved in the areas that we kind of struggled with the first time. I would say we for sure made gains from where we were in the beginning of the year, but until you go back you don’t really know, so for us, at least on the 14 team, I felt like Atlanta was probably our worst race of the year from a balance and just a speed standpoint, so I’m very anxious to kind of see how we stack up this week. We’re gonna have a lot better track position from the starting position standpoint than we’ve really ever had this year, so trying to just capitalize on that. Like you were saying, our cars have definitely gotten better, but we don’t know how much better it’s gonna be at Atlanta. It’s kind of its own unique racetrack in a sense of the 550 package, so hopefully we’ll be good. Like I said, track position I think will go a long way and I feel like as a driver I’ve come a long way since the first Atlanta race, so hopefully we can just continue to build on these last couple of weeks and have a good run and just get out of there and try to improve on that first race and kind of see where we are from there.”
IS A 400-MILE RACE NOTICEABLY DIFFERENT FROM A 500-MILE RACE AND WILL 400 MILES AT ATLANTA BE A GOOD THING? “Yeah, I’m probably not the best one to answer that just because I still don’t have a ton of experience even with the 500 or the 400-mile races, but I know the Atlanta 500-mile race felt super long earlier this year, probably one of the longest ones. Sonoma was the longest feeling race and then Atlanta was after that, so I’m glad that it’s 100 miles less because it definitely was a long day, especially like I was saying, our car earlier this year was just off from a speed and balance standpoint, so that makes it seem even longer whenever you’re in there for that extra 100 miles. It doesn’t really change a ton inside the car. Like your mentality I don’t think changes at all that it’s 100 miles shorter. I don’t think the intensity level is any different, but I guess it just goes by a little bit quicker, but it’s gonna be super hot this weekend, so I guess I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t glad it was 400 instead of 500 this weekend.”
WHAT DID YOU THINK OF ATLANTA REPAVING, INCREASING THE BANKING AND NARROWING THE WIDTH OF THE TRACK? “I would say that it caught me off guard. I didn’t necessarily see that one coming. I figured it was just gonna be a repave, and I wish — like I think a lot of the drivers, we all wish that they would kind of ask us some of our opinions just because we feel like we can kind of give them the best direction to go. I think there’s a fine line of kind of doing what’s best for us and what’s best for the fans. I think at the end of the day we want what’s best for both of us. I don’t think any of us necessarily enjoy going and running wide-open, but we also know that when we’re slipping and sliding around as much as we have in the past at Atlanta, it’s not typically the best racing. So, I think, for us, at least if I had a vote in what was gonna get built or re-done, I would want something kind of like Homestead. I think that’s a really great racetrack for drivers and fans. It seems like all the fans always like when we go there and as a driver it’s a place you have a lot of fun at, so I wish they would have talked to us — not even me, I’m a rookie. I wish they would have talked to the veteran guys and kind of got their opinion. I feel like going forward that could be something that would be beneficial for everybody. They don’t even have to necessarily take our opinion, but at least just listen to it and maybe they can see some things that we say and take it into account and maybe they like some of our ideas and maybe they don’t, but I think it would be beneficial to at least talk to us because we do have a different set of eyes or viewpoint on it than somebody just watching a race. We’re down there and at the end of the day we have to be the ones that can put on a show and the track has to be able to produce a good show and I think some of that goes back to dirt racing. You can have the best dirt track in the world, but if it’s not prepped right from a water standpoint, how you till it, all of those things, the racing is not gonna be good because the track has to be prepared right, and it’s the same, I think, when you go reconfigure a place. I don’t know if any of us know what this place is gonna race like yet, obviously, but it would be nice, I guess, to just kind of get some of the driver’s opinions on it and kind of see what we all thought.”
DO YOU HAVE ANY KIND OF FEEL OF HOW THE NEXT GEN CAR WILL DRIVE ANYWHERE? “No, from what I’ve been told it’s definitely gonna be different from what we have right now, but I think when they went and did tests with it, it’s probably quite a bit different than what it’s gonna be. They came so far in a pretty short amount of time and everything it seems like seems to change every time they go test it they’re trying different things and ways to make it better. I think all of us are very curious to see what it’s gonna drive like, especially in a pack and all these things, so it’s gonna be very interesting at the Daytona 500, that’s for sure. For that to be the first race is gonna be a lot of pressure, so hopefully it’s a good show and I know that they look cool sitting there. I’m anxious to see how they drive and hopefully I can be one of the guys that gets to a test session here soon.”
