Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
NASCAR Zoom Media Availability | Wednesday, March 24, 2021
Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 14 Ford Performance Racing School Ford Mustang in the NASCAR Cup Series, has one NASCAR victory on dirt after winning the Eldora Dirt Derby in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series in 2018. Briscoe was a guest today on a NASCAR Zoom media call to discuss his double duty efforts this weekend and expectations at Bristol Motor Speedway. A full transcript of his Q&A session with the media follows:
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 14 Ford Performance Racing School Ford Mustang — HOW DID THE TIRE TEST GO IN NASHVILLE AND WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE TRACK? “Yesterday in Nashville was cool for me just to go to a new racetrack I’d never been to before and it’s definitely a different racetrack than anything I’ve ever ran. It kind of reminded me a little bit of Kentucky. It’s just very flat. One and two are pretty high speed and three and four are just really flat and kind of awkward, but I thought the tire test from a speed standpoint we were pretty good. I know there are a lot of questions about the tires. We kept cording tires it seemed like after 20-25 laps, so I don’t know how much of that is just rubber not getting put down because there wasn’t enough cars there. It was kind of cool, but they’re definitely doing a lot of work at that place trying to make the facility nicer. It’s obviously sat dormant for quite a while and the folks at Dover I know are gonna do a good job over there, but it was cool to go there. I don’t know what the racing is going to be like just because there were only three of us there. We never really got off the bottom, but it’s cool to go to a new place. There’s obviously a lot of motorsports fans in the Nashville area. I know they said they’re already talking about building extra grandstands to sell more seats because there’s such demand, so it should be a good time.”
DO YOU THINK RUNNING ON DIRT THIS WEEK WILL BE WHAT YOU NEED TO JUMP START YOUR ROOKIE SEASON? “I hope so. I definitely don’t think it can hurt. I feel like the first couple weeks, with the exception of last week, we’ve had good speed. Phoenix, I felt like we could have run seventh or eighth area and we had a 24-second green flag pit stop with 50 to go and it just kind of killed us, so I feel like from a speed standpoint we’ve been good up until last week, and hopefully this week will finally be the one week where we can just get the results because we haven’t really been able to show the results side of things. We’ve had the speed, just haven’t been able to execute, so hopefully this week we can turn it around. Obviously, we need to turn it around quick or we’re gonna be in a must-win situation fairly early. We’re almost already to that point, so we’ll see how this weekend goes. We’re gonna try to just go there and do the best we can. That’s all we can do.”
HOW WAS THE TRACK ITSELF IN NASHVILLE? “Truthfully, I was blown away by the grip level. It had way more grip than I ever thought it would. I was kind of like you, I figured with how long it sat that it was gonna take forever for us to even get any grip in it whatsoever, but we had a ton of grip right from the get-go. It seemed like the grip didn’t really change, no matter if we put softer tires on or harder tires on. Times only changed really a tenth or two, so it’s got a lot of grip in it. I want to say they ground the place, they said, so it’s pretty fresh in that sense. From a racetrack standpoint I know there’s a couple spots on the wall where there’s no SAFER barrier and I think that’s just because the place is pretty narrow, and it’s more just on the straightaway, so I don’t know what the plan is with that or if that’s how we would race it or not. They had re-black topped all the access roads and pit road, so they’re definitely doing a lot to get the facility ready. I know yesterday everytime you would go down the backstretch you would see a guy welding billboards. They were doing all the posts and making it where it looks like a normal racetrack, so I feel like by the time we go there it will definitely be ready to go racing. I know they said there was a lot of work to do, but they had a ton of people out there yesterday working on it.”
FROM YOUR TRUCK EXPERIENCE AT ELDORA WHAT CAN CUP DRIVERS EXPECT FROM A CAR THAT’S NOT DESIGNED TO RUN A DIRT TRACK? “It’s hard for me to really say because I think Bristol is gonna be quite a bit different from Eldora just from the standpoint of how the banking is, how tight the corners are. I think it’ll drive way different. Eldora, I think you can get away with driving the car pretty sideways, where Bristol I don’t know if you’re gonna do that at Bristol, truthfully. Until I go out there and do it, it’s hard for me to say it’s gonna be this way or that way. I will say from my Eldora experience I felt like you couldn’t run the car as sideways as you would as a typical dirt car, so I think for guys that have watched other dirt racing but have never raced it, you think you’re gonna be so hung out the whole time and all this stuff, instead of sideways and it’s not necessarily the case always in a Cup car or the stock car stuff. They just aren’t meant to be on dirt. They don’t drive very well on dirt, so I would say that would be the biggest thing is it’s hard for me to really say until we go do it just because I do think Bristol is gonna drive quite a bit different than Eldora.”
HAVE THE NEW INSPECTION RULES IMPACTED SHR? WHAT HAS THE CONVERSATION BEEN LIKE WITH THE TEAM? “It’s hard for me to really say because I don’t know what the thing drove like last year. It’s no secret, I feel like we’re off as a company a little bit right now and I don’t know if it’s because of that rule change or what, but it seems like our cars don’t have the raw speed of the other cars and they just don’t drive very good right now, either. I know there is definitely a concern. Our competition meetings have been very intense the last couple of weeks. We’re definitely gonna figure this deal out and try to figure out what’s going on and get another direction on it. I think you’re gonna see a difference here in the upcoming weeks, for sure, just because there are so many smart people here at SHR. I was talking to a couple guys the other day and this happened to our company before, where we kind of struggled, and we kind of had to reinvent the wheel and get back to something and figure it out, and I think that’s gonna be the same thing here. We’re just off right now. We have a lot of really smart people and a lot of real racers here, so they’re gonna dig down deep and figure it out. I think for me the encouraging thing is as a company we’ve struggled and, for me at least, it’s not encouraging that we’re struggling but for me to kind of struggle to even run inside the top 20 and then you look at my teammates and they’re kind of right there with me. So, for me at least, I feel like that’s good. It would be different if I was running 25th and Kevin was winning every race, but as a company we’re just off right now. Like I said, I know we’re gonna get it turned around and hopefully we can get it turned around soon.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT RUNNING FOR CORY ROPER THIS WEEKEND? “I’m excited to run with those guys. Obviously, it’s a smaller team and in the past I’d always ran with ThorSport, but with their switch it made it hard to even find a Ford in the field, so I actually had known somebody over at Cory Roper’s deal, Shane Whitbeck, he was at Brad Keselowski Racing and kind of runs Cory’s truck team, and I reached out to see if there was any interest in me maybe running the truck over there at Bristol. There was definitely interest they said, so we put it together I have not been to Texas. They actually brought the truck here last week and just let the SHR guys put a seat in it, instead of us sending a seat out there just because the SHR guys kind of knew how I wanted the seat in the truck. An hour ago I was sitting in the thing and as soon as this is over I’m gonna go back over there and try to sit in it and just figure out the final details, but I think it’s been cool to see them guys run good. Daytona, Cory almost won the thing, so it would be cool for us to get a win for them or just even have a good run. They’re a small team and it would be cool to get them up front, so that’s what we’ll try to do.”
IS THIS WEEKEND WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED FOR YOU WITH THE CUP SERIES ON DIRT? “Yeah, I hope so. I think it’s a great opportunity to go run good, just from an experience standpoint. I’ll be one of the guys in the field that probably has more dirt experience than a lot of them, so this is really gonna be the only week maybe outside of the Indy road course all year long where I actually have experience where the Cup field doesn’t, so being able to hopefully use that advantage. It could be a huge boost to our team, but it also could be a downfall if we go there and really struggle because there is such high hopes, so we’ve just got to go there. Nobody knows what to expect from a setup standpoint. Some teams could hit it. Some teams could miss it. Hopefully, we get it right. I think setup is still very important on the dirt side. Just because you have a dirt background still doesn’t mean you’re gonna win this race. There are a lot of variables that go into it, so I don’t know. Hopefully, we can have a good run because we definitely need it right now and it would be a good momentum booster into the couple weeks off.”
HOW MUCH IS THIS RACE A WILD CARD? HOW MUCH DOES IT LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD? “I think it’s hard to say until we get there and really see what it’s gonna be all about. It’s for sure a wild card. It’s one of those races that nobody going into it knows what’s gonna happen. Anybody could go win this race. Equipment is still gonna matter. I think it’s somewhere in the middle of a superspeedway and just a normal race. Equipment is still gonna matter a little more than it would at a superspeedway, but at the same time I feel like any team could go here and run better than they typically do, so until we get there and kind of see what happens I think it’s kind of hard to say, but I’m just looking forward to it. I think the Cup Series has needed a dirt race for a very long time and I can’t wait to be a part of the first one in over 50 years.”
HOW IS THE CHALLENGE ADJUSTING FROM DOMINANCE LAST YEAR IN XFINITY TO STRUGGLING IN CUP? “It’s tough. Like you said, it’s only been six races so trying to keep that in perspective, but the Cup Series is so hard. Everybody is so good. I just try to keep in perspective that Chase Elliott is last champion and it took him nearly 100 races to get a win, so just trying to remember it’s not gonna come right away. Every rookie I feel like struggles a little bit and it just takes time to get your feet underneath you. Obviously, it’s no secret right now that we’re kind of struggling as a company, so that’s not helping either, but I feel like we’ve had decent speed and we just haven’t been able to execute. I feel like I”ve learned so much over these first six races that I know I’m gonna be twice the race car driver in another six races and by the end of the year it’s gonna be incredible growth, so I just have to try and learn as much as I can here early, but it’s definitely frustrating to not even say we have a top 10 right now or even a top 15. I feel like we’ve been capable from a speed standpoint, but haven’t been able to put it all together. The Cup deal is just no joke. Everybody is so good from a driving standpoint. Everybody’s car is really good and I was telling Cindric a couple hours before the Atlanta race I said, ‘This is gonna be the most frustrating day of your life. You’re gonna race as hard as you can. You’re gonna run a great race and you’re gonna ask them at some point during this race what position you’re in and they’re gonna tell you you’re in 25th place and you’re not gonna believe it.’ And he came up to me right after the race and said, ‘Man, you weren’t kidding. I asked them about halfway through what position I was in and I was in 25th.’ It’s just crazy how you race so hard and you’re 20-25th place. It’s just really tough in the Cup Series for sure.”
WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU NOTICED IN TERMS OF THE ADJUSTMENT? “I think the biggest thing for me is you have to be 100 percent on. The XFINITY Series, I could make a mistake or as a team we could have a bad pit stop and you can recover no problem, for the most part, where in the Cup Series you make one mistake and you’re buried the rest of the day. You speed on pit road, you have a bad pit stop, just as a rookie especially we don’t have the raw speed as some of these other guys right now. We can’t go from the back to the front and you just have to be 100 percent on it. There’s so much information you need as a driver, trying to figure out, ‘OK, where are the other guys running? What am I doing wrong in this area?’ More gas, more brake, all these things, there’s just so much more information you need to know and just from an execution standpoint, like I said, if you make one little mistake it costs you so big in the Cup Series, where in the XFINITY stuff you can get away with mistakes and be able to recover fairly easy.”
HOW WAS THE NASHVILLE TEST? “It was good. We had some tire issues just from cording tires and it seemed like after 20-25 laps you would start cording tires, but it was good. They were definitely doing a lot of renovations on the facility. The racetrack was in really good shape as far as the track goes, so I think it’s gonna be a crazy race. I don’t know if there’s a plan to put PJ1 down or anything like that. It seemed like it was very bottom dominant yesterday, but I’m definitely looking forward to going there. They said they’re already talking about building more grandstands because there’s such a demand for tickets, so it should be a good time whenever we go back.”
IS THERE MORE PRESSURE THIS WEEKEND KNOWING THERE WILL BE MORE EYES ON YOU AND EXPECTATIONS ARE HIGH FOR YOU TO DO WELL? “No, not really. I feel like I’ve put quite a bit of pressure on myself week in and week out to go and perform. This week is obviously one that we feel like we can go run up front, but I feel like I can go run up front anywhere. I feel like you have to have that confidence in yourself and your ability to go do it. If you don’t, why are you doing it here? I think, for us, at least from my standpoint, I’m looking at it like any other race weekend. I’m just gonna go there and try to give it my all and if that’s enough, then it’s enough. If not, it’s not and we’ll go back to the drawing board and try to figure out what I need to do better. There’s definitely, I think, from the team side of things. Obviously, we’re not in the best points situation. We know that this is an opportunity where it’s not gonna be a race where I’m just going in blind and have no practice and have to figure it out from an experience standpoint. I do have more experience than a lot of the field, so trying to just take advantage of this week and try to score stage points and all those things and hopefully we can have a good day.”
FORECAST IS FOR RAIN BOTH DAYS IN BRISTOL. WHAT WOULD THAT DO TO TRACK CONDITIONS? “It really just depends on how much rain we have. Obviously, there’s a good chance it rains out, but I don’t know. It just depends. The NASCAR stuff is in a tough box because we have a windshield, so typically the track could be way heavier and a typical dirt race you can go race because you don’t have a windshield, where, for us, with a windshield you kind of have to be careful because it gets so bad and we can’t see. The engines start overheating and all these things, so it really just depends on the amount of rain. I don’t know what equipment they have at Bristol from a drying standpoint with how much bank there is I don’t even know if you could get trucks on the track to pack it or grater or whatever. I think, for me, until I go there and see it, it’s hard to say. I think, naturally, that place the water should run down off the dirt fairly easy I would think. It’s just hard to say until I get there and see it, but if there’s a lot of rain it’s not like they can pull jet dryers out there or anything like that. It’s gonna take the sun to come out. There’s really no wind because of how the track is, but the sun to come out and dry it out. That’s all you can really do.”
DID YOU HAVE ANY RUN-INS WITH NOAH GRAGSON IN XFINITY AND WHAT IS HE LIKE AS A COMPETITOR? “I never had any run-ins with Noah. I always enjoyed racing with him. For me, I never pull over for anybody. I never complain about racing hard and Noah definitely races hard, so I always enjoyed it. I like when guys make it hard to pass you. That’s their job to do, just like it’s my job to make it really hard to pass me, so me and Noah have always raced great. I have no hard feelings against Noah. I get along fine with him and always had fun racing with him.”
HOW MUCH ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO RETURNING TO YOUR ROOTS AND RACING ON THE DIRT AT BRISTOL? “I’m super excited. I feel like growing up all the race car drivers are either dirt guys, they’re short track guys or road course guys. We have a short track and we have a road course in the Cup Series, but we don’t have a dirt track to be able to see these guys challenge every discipline, so, for me, I feel like we’ve needed a dirt race in the Cup Series to see guys that aren’t dirt guys growing up challenge this discipline, just like dirt guys are challenged when they go to other disciplines. I’m excited. I’’m glad we’re doing it. It’s been over 50 years in the Cup Series, but I can’t wait to go there. Personally, I just can’t wait to see dirt on Bristol. The first time I walked in the place I was obviously a sprint car fan growing up and around sprint car racing and I remember watching the Bristol dirt race. I remember watching it on YouTube and playing it on pure video games and it just didn’t even seem fathomable that they could put dirt on a place like Bristol. The first time I walked in I remember calling my dad and being like, ‘I cannot imaging what dirt would look like on this place.’ And to finally be able to see that and be a part of that event is gonna be super special, so I can’t wait.”
ROGER PENSKE WAS ASKED ABOUT HAVING NASCAR AND INDY CAR ON A STREET COURSE . WOULD YOU WELCOME THAT WITH NASCAR? “Yeah, absolutely. I don’t care where we race, I just enjoy racing. I would love to see dirt thrown on a road course. I think that would be cool even, so a street course I think would be really neat just from an atmospheric standpoint. I think the electricity that would come behind a street course, I’ve never been to one in person, but I imagine it would be pretty cool here hearing the motors roaring and echoing off the buildings and everything else, so I would be all for a street course. I’d be all for wherever we want to go race, personally.”
WHAT CAN YOU LEARN FROM THE iRACING EVENT TONIGHT AND WHAT IMPACT HAS IT HAD ON THE SPORT AS A WHOLE? “I think it had a huge impact last year during COVID. For us to be able to still put on a show for our fans and our sponsors it was a huge thing for us. Our sport is in a unique situation where we’re really probably the only sport that can do the video game style event and it still be relative to what we actually do. A football player playing Madden on a controller does not show their athletic ability, where we still have a steering wheel and pedals. The car just isn’t real, it’s virtual, so I think you can learn a lot on iRacing. I think that’s the reason why all of these drivers use it as a teaching tool whenever they go to a new racetrack, a road course, whatever. I know when I was in the ARCA Series in 2016 I ran every track on iRacing just so I could learn the racetrack and little things about it, so you can definitely learn things from that standpoint, and then also just racing against your peers. Typically, the things they do in real life on restarts and different scenarios they do on iRacing as well, so you can learn and pick up little things, so there’s definitely a lot to learn and I’m looking forward to obviously racing on there tonight. It’s always fun to go in there and have some fun and I’m sure it’ll be exciting to watch.”
HAS YOUR DEVELOPMENT IN CUP BEEN STIFLED BY THE COVID PROTOCOLS? “Yeah. If you look at the fact there’s no practice, I feel like that would definitely help me right now, just being able to go get laps and without COVID I’m sure we would still be practicing. It would be normal race weekends, all these things, so I would say, yeah, it definitely affects performance in a sense of that side of things, just not being able to get that seat time that is so crucial, just being able to feel these cars out before my first lap is being in the race, so I feel like it definitely affects that side of things, but totally understand why we’re in that situation. At the same time, everybody is in the same boat as I am. They have past experience, but it’s just kind of the cards we’re dealt right now. We have to deal with it and go on and it just makes it even more satisfying if you do go and run good.”
KEVIN MENTIONED HE WOULD LEAN ON YOU. WHAT HAVE DISCUSSIONS BEEN LIKE LEADING UP TO THIS WEEKEND? “Yeah, it’s definitely been weird for me to be the guy that Kevin is coming to. Typically, it’s me going to Kevin. We actually talked on Monday for probably 20-30 minutes on the phone just going through the different things of what I felt like the car is gonna need to have, things that he can expect to see, feeling he can expect to feel and just kind of where he needs to try to get his car during practice. It’s definitely weird to have a guy like that coming to me, but it’s neat. Hopefully, I didn’t steer him in the wrong direction and hopefully he can have a good run. I told him that it would not surprise me at all for him to go run really, really good there, just the throttle control and all the things that it takes to go good on dirt is something that he’s really phenomenal at on pavement, so I think he’ll be just fine at it. Kevin is a phenomenal race car driver, so he’s gonna figure it out and who knows, by the end I might be going up to him and asking him for some help, too.”
WHAT SURPRISED YOU THE MOST ABOUT THE TRUCKS RACING AT ELDORA? “I think the biggest thing is you just can’t drive them like a typical dirt car, like a sprint car, something that you drive really, really hard and you’re really hung out sideways. You can’t do that in the trucks, especially just because they’re not really made to run that sideways. It seemed like the tires struggled to kind of hold the truck out at that much of an angle. There’s still tendencies that drive like a typical dirt car, but they’re just not made to go on dirt like a sprint car would be, so you have to drive them a little bit different. They’re obviously way heavier, less power than the sprint car, so they just race different and the track change is a little bit different, so I think that was probably the biggest thing for me.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE A CUP SERIES DRIVER NOW AFTER SIX RACES? “Every week I’m out on the grid and I’m still kind of speechless that I’m even out there in the Cup Series. It seems like something that would never have happened in a million years to be there and driving the car that I am for the team that I am. It’s just unbelievable still to this day. It just doesn’t feel necessarily real, so I’m still pinching myself every Sunday, even throughout the week it’s still crazy, even yesterday. If you would have told me five years ago or even two years ago that I was gonna be doing a tire test at Nashville in the 14 car, I would have told you you’re crazy, so it definitely still hasn’t sunk in yet.”
CHRIS BUESCHER MENTIONED HE HEARD SOME TEAMS WOULD DETUNE THEIR MOTORS TO MAKE LESS POWER. COULD THIS BE A CASE THIS WEEKEND EVEN THOUGH THE ENGINES ARE EFI? “I don’t know. Personally, I want the power. I think if maybe you’re a guy that hasn’t run dirt before and not used to that type of throttle control, I could see where you would want to do stuff like that, but, for me, I want all the power I can handle. I feel like my right foot is good enough to manage it when I need to, but I want that power when I need it, especially if it builds a cushion or gets really rough. I think you’re gonna want that power to be able to bust through all those holes. I think if you’re a dirt guy, you definitely want all the power, but if you’re not a dirt guy I can definitely see where guys would do it. I know when I ran in the Truck Series in 2017 for Brad’s team they asked me if I wanted to do something with the throttle stop to only get 70 percent throttle or whatever and I told them I wanted the full deal, so I don’t know. I guess you could do it with the EFI, I have no idea. I don’t really know how to answer that question other than I know for my sake I want all the power I can get.”
