NASCAR XFINITY SERIES
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2020
CHASE BRISCOE AND AUSTIN CINDRIC CHAMPIONSHIP 4 MEDIA AVAILABILITY
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 98 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang — HOW IS EVERYTHING GOING WITH YOU AND MARISSA? “It’s been a crazy week. Fortunately, I mean, it’s never a good thing, but we were way earlier this time than we were the last time. After the first time we had a miscarraige, the amount of outreach from people we felt like it helped making it public. We just felt the same way this time and, honestly, Marissa, it just helps her a lot whenever she can read other peoples’ comments, tweets and all these things. That’s another reason we’ve just kind of been open about it and I feel like it helps me too going to the racetrack. If I was going through that and nobody knew what I was going through or just the stress or whatever at home just makes it a lot easier for me to have people know what’s going on, instead of trying to hide it. It’s definitely been a very unfortunate week, it’s been a tough week, it’s been really hard on Marissa and obviously it’s been hard on me as well. We’re trying to stay positive and get through this week, and then figure out what we’ve got to do going forward.”
DO YOU FEEL READY TO RACE? ARE YOU CLEAR AND READY? “Yeah, absolutely. I feel like I’ve always done a good job at kind of keeping the two separate and, truthfully, it doesn’t motivate me more but just helps me get in the race car and get away and really focus. I feel 100 percent ready to go this week, no different than any other week.”
HOW CONFIDENT ARE YOU HEADING INTO PHOENIX AND WHAT DID YOU LEARN THE LAST TIME YOU WERE THERE? “I felt like we made some good gains the last time we were there. I feel like the results didn’t necessarily show the speed that we had. We had a miscue on pit road towards the end of the race and had to go to the back and got back to sixth, so I felt speed-wise we were pretty good. Statistically, it’s not my best racetrack, but we still won nine races this year. The confidence is high. I feel like we’ve been the best team all year long and there’s no reason why we can’t go to Phoenix and be the same way. I feel like we’re going in there with nothing to lose and everything to gain. We’ve just got to go there and do our normal deal no different than all the other 32 races. If we just go there and focus on the 98 car and nobody else, I feel like we’re gonna be in the hunt at least at the end and as long as you’re in the hunt, you’ve got a chance for it, so that’s what we’ll try to go do.”
DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING YOU WANT TO ACCOMPLISH DURING THE OFFSEASON? “I’d like to probably get in a little bit better shape just going into next year with the length of the races and just kind of really focus on that side of things, just being as physically prepared as possible going into next year. I’ve talked to quite a few of the Cup guys and they don’t feel like the physical side running those long races is necessarily any tougher, but I just feel like that’s something I could definitely improve on if I had to pinpoint one area. It’s a short offseason with all the preparation you’ve got to get going ready for Daytona and it’s just a quick turnaround in general. Plus, I’ll do some midget racing in the offseason, so just trying to get better in shape overall — physically, mentally, all those things just trying to be ready for next year.”
MARISSA TWEETED YOU HAD SOME GOOD BABY NEWS TO SHARE. CAN YOU UPDATE US? “I don’t want to go into it too much because I don’t know what she wants the world to know and what she doesn’t want the world to know, but really just kind of the next process of talking to her doctors about why it’s been happening and what the next prevention measure, I guess, could be — the next kind of thing we can try. I’ll let Marissa talk about it if she wants to say more of the details, but the doctors feel a lot more confident that this will kind of help our situation with what Marissa deals with, so hopefully that will be something going forward that will help. It’s obviously been super hard on both of us, especially Marissa, so I don’t want to say. I don’t want Marissa mad at me, but it’s kind of the next process and kind of the next thing to try in our path of trying to have a kid.”
WHAT WOULD IT MEAN FOR YOU TO WIN THE TITLE WITH THE PERSONAL CHALLENGES YOU’VE FACED, AND HAS THAT HURT OR ENHANCED YOUR PERFORMANCE ON THE TRACK? “I feel like no matter how high the high is on the racetrack it never compares to the low, but it does help balance it out a little bit. It would be obviously great to win the championship. I don’t know if it necessarily gives me anymore motivation one way or the other. I’m going every week to win the race no matter what happens during the week, so it would be great to win the championship, but I don’t think that necessarily helps the low of lows. But it has been a really unique season for everybody just with Covid and everybody has kind of had a rough year, and it’s been no different on our part, but there are people that have had a way worse year than we’ve had, so I’m just very fortunate that we had the potential and the possibility to kind of have those high moments still because there are a lot of people that are stuck at home that can’t do anything, where they can achieve any of those things. So for us to be able to kind of have something that can potentially offset the lows certainly helps.”
WILL YOUR WIFE BE THERE THIS WEEKEND? WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO CELEBRATE A TITLE WITH HER? “That’s a great point. She’s only been to Bristol, but she wasn’t able to celebrate. They didn’t allow anybody to come down there, where for the championship they will. As of right now, she plans on going to Phoenix unless something crazy happens. She’s terrified of flying and normally a 20-minute flight has her freaking out and Phoenix is obviously a lot more than 20 minutes, so she’s trying to muster up the courage to go out there, but hopefully she’ll be there and hopefully I can win the race and the championship and we can finally have that moment to celebrate together. I feel like it would be good for both of us. She really hasn’t been there for a lot of my wins in general this year. She’s only been able to go to that one race and didn’t get to celebrate after and outside of that she’s only been at the Roval and when I won at Iowa, so we haven’t really got to celebrate a lot of success together on the racetrack, so this would be the biggest one to this point and hopefully she can make the flight and then, secondly, I can win the championship.”
IN PAST RACES YOU’VE WON HOW WOULD YOU CELEBRATE WITH HER? “Normally, I’ll just Facetime her afterwards after the media or before I go do the media, and then when I get home it’s normally so late she’s asleep anyways and we just wake up the next morning and it’s just a normal day. Just being able to finally celebrate with her and get to see her emotion because normally I don’t get to see the raw emotion right after a win, so hopefully it happens and hopefully we can have that moment.”
WHEN HARVICK GOT KNOCKED OUT LAST WEEK HE SAID WINNING ALL THOSE RACES DURING THE REGULAR SEASON IS WHAT IT WAS ALL ABOUT. IS THAT WHAT IT’S ABOUT OR WOULD IT BE A HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT NOT TO WIN THE TITLE AT THIS POINT? “I think that’s a great question and one that with today’s playoff format technically you could win the first 35 races of the year and blow a motor early and you’re fourth in the championship. I don’t think you can let winning a championship necessarily define your season. If you win two or three races and you win the championship, then I would say, yeah, it defines your season because you’re the champion, but if you have a year like Harvick had, where you win nine races and you don’t even make the final four and you don’t win the championship, I don’t think you can say, ‘Hey, this year was a failure,’ because winning nine races is a phenomenal year, so, yeah, you’re gonna be disappointed if you don’t win the championship, but, at the same time, we’ve won more races than anybody else all year long and that’s what you start the season to do. You try to go there and win every race and win as much as possible and we’ve been very fortunate to be able to do that. Yeah, we’re going there to win the championship, but, at the end of the day, whether we finish first or fourth we’ve had a really good season and one to be proud of and hopefully we can win the championship.”
WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE WHERE YOU WERE AND NOW WHERE YOU ARE? “It’s unbelievable and crazy to think about. Whether you go back five years when I was literally just walking into random race shops trying to let me volunteer and sleep on couches. And even going back to literally this weekend last year, I had no ride. And now to have a 25 percent chance to win the championship and won nine races this year and be going into the Cup Series next year for not only my dream team, but my dream number, all of those things are just so crazy to think about. It’s been an unbelievable journey the last five or six years and I’ve certainly been blessed to be able to get to this point, and the way it’s all happened and came full circle has just been really unbelievable to think about.”
THE OTHER THREE DRIVERS WILL BE BACK IN THE SERIES NEXT YEAR. IS THERE ANY URGENCY THAT THIS COULD BE THE LAST TIME YOU WORK WITH THIS GROUP FOR A WHILE? “I think, for me, you always want to go out on top anytime you leave any team or any series. You want to leave on top. You want to feel like you didn’t leave anything on the table and I’ve been super fortunate. In ARCA I was able to win the last race of the season and win the championship. In the Truck Series I was able to win the last race that season and that’s always been as I’ve progressed to the next year. Hopefully, the third time continues to be that way, but you definitely want to do that. You want to reward those guys. I’ve been with the 98 team for two and a half years now and without those guys there’s no way I would be moving on to the 14, so I want to say thank you to those guys and I want to give them a championship. That’s what they all deserve. They’ve worked so hard, not only this year but the last two and a half years and you want to go out and you definitely have a little bit of added pressure, I think, just in general of wanting to make those guys proud and want to go out on top as a team.”
WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FOR PHOENIX? “I think for me just the racetrack. Not that I don’t get around Phoenix great, I just simply haven’t had the success that I’d like to have there. It’s a place I’ve always kind of struggled to just get the balance that I need. I think that’s the biggest thing at night is just constantly, ‘All right, what am I doing wrong and what am I telling the team that I need different?’ Because I feel like in practice I can get the car to drive good or maybe it’s not driving how I want it to, but then I’m faster and just kind of that balance of what you need versus what the car is doing. I think that’s the hardest thing for me and, truthfully, I’m kind of excited for no practice just because I feel like I tune myself out every time we go to Phoenix. I kind of think I need one thing and the race starts and it’s the total opposite, so, hopefully, the no practicing will kind of bode well for us. I feel like we have a pretty good baseline of where we need to be. Being fortunate enough to be locked in these last couple weeks has allowed us to really focus on Phoenix and go to the simulator and do all these things and, hopefully, that will all correlate over to real life and we’ll have a good balance.”
IS PART OF IT MENTAL WHEN A DRIVER DOESN’T HAVE SUCCESS AT A TRACK? “For sure. I think confidence is such a big deal. I feel like my confidence level this year has been a lot of the reason just for the success. When you’re confident you’re not second guessing things you’re doing on the racetrack, you’re just reacting and going. When you go into a racetrack that you’re confident at, you normally run good. For me, statistically I haven’t ran there great, but just trying to keep in the back of your mind that we’ve won nine races this year. We’re gonna be fast. We’ve kind of been the guy to beat all year long and there’s no reason why going to Phoenix we can’t be that same way, so just trying to keep that mentality and that confidence I think will go a long way. It’s not that we’ve been slow at Phoenix it’s just results-wise things haven’t gone our way at the end of races. We don’t have the wins that we’d like to have, so hopefully we can change that this weekend.”
HAVE YOU REACHED OUT TO KEVIN HARVICK FOR THIS WEEKEND? “Obviously, with everything going on in the playoffs I haven’t reached out to bother him. I know he’s got a lot going on and then this week I know he’s probably bummed out, so I’ll call him probably on Saturday, truthfully. I’ve kind of been letting him have his space. I know he’s a super busy guy. I think the plan was for him to come on Monday and help with the simulator and then after everything on Sunday we didn’t even reach back out. We just let him kind of have his space, so I’ll call him before Saturday. I’ll probably honestly even talk to Tony. He always got around there pretty good, so just trying to use all those things. I’ve talked to Kevin in the past at Phoenix. Last year I went and stood on their trailer all of practice with Rodney and just tried to listen and learn, so I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of what I need to go around there, it’s just kind of talking to Kevin and even Tony to kind of just get a refresher of what I need.”
