Chase Briscoe never would have thought he would be racing in the Xfinity Series a few years ago. He didn’t even know he would be racing in NASCAR.
“A lot of people don’t know my story, but I was sleeping on a couch for three years and volunteering at race shops and honestly I just thought I was going to go to school and work a 40-hour week job and race sprint cars on the side,” Brisoce told NASCAR.com on Friday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. “… I was actually moving back to Indiana the week I found out I was going to get the opportunity to run the ARCA stuff. I was over it and going back home and a door opened up for me and it ended up progressing all the way to here.
“I don’t think I’d believe it five years ago — I really still don’t believe it to this day. So, hopefully five years from now I can say I’m in Cup and battling for wins and championships. But we’ve got to perform here first.”
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Briscoe, 23, will make his Xfinty Series debut in the heart of Georgia this weekend. The 2017 Camping World Truck Series Rookie of the Year is slated to run 12 races in Roush Fenway Racing’s No. 60 Ford, sharing the ride with Austin Cindric and Ty Majeski. He will also run select Xfinity races for Stewart-Haas Racing with Biagi-DenBeste as well as sports car and sprint-car forays, with a potential for a few Truck starts.
His 2018 race total is expected to amount to 60-70 events, he said.
“There are so many people and so many names and so many different crew chiefs and what not,” Briscoe said. “… It’s just a lot to handle, but it’s going to be fun and the biggest thing that will help me overall is just getting to drive different kinds of race cars, kind of the versatility of all that. I think it will make me better down the road, honestly. So, I’m looking forward it.
“Something I never thought I’d do in my career, be running sports cars and NASCAR and sprint cars all together, but it will be a fun year. Wish I was full-time but I think that’s kind of the best thing about being part-time, you can do all those things.”
Briscoe ended last year with the Camping World Truck Series Most Popular Driver award — and a winner trophy from the series’ season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
With that win, he saw his career come “full circle” — from sleeping on couches to celebrating in Victory Lane for the first time.
“It was huge and for me, it kind of just solidified everything,” Briscoe said on the win ” … Certainly gives you a little bit of confidence (coming into Atlanta) I think but at the same time, the Xfinity Series is so much tougher than the Truck Series just like the Trucks is tougher than ARCA and the Cup Series is tougher than Xfinity.
“So, you’ve got to constantly climb up the ladder and you’ve got to win with whatever you get in and hopefully we can do that over here.”
This weekend, he sets his sights on Atlanta – one of his favorite race tracks – and figuring his way around in an Xfinity car.
“(I’m) just anxious, ready to go,” he said. “It’s been a couple months since we’ve been in the car, so excited to get here and obviously a little bit nervous just because I don’t know what to expect. It will be the first time sitting in the thing … One of my favorite race tracks, though, so that makes it a little bit easier for me. Just excited to get going and curious to see how the outcome is going to be.”
And maybe one day, he’ll figure his way around a bobsled – Briscoe tweeted Friday that he would love to jump in one.
Why? It’s the most similar Olympic sport to stock-car racing. And Briscoe’s a racer, no matter the vehicle.
“The bobsled has always been something that I just thought looked cool,” Briscoe said with a smile. “I think it’s as close as you can get to driving a race car and it be an Olympic sport. Something about it – you’re in high-banked corners and you’re going 80 miles per hour and it just looks fun to me.”