With a well-versed dirt racing background, Chase Briscoe strived to be in Victory Lane after last year’s Bristol Dirt Race.
Approaching race leader Tyler Reddick in the closing laps, it was inevitable the Hoosier would send it on Reddick if given the opportunity. That opportunity opened and ended with both of them spinning down the high banks of the Tennessee short track, allowing Kyle Busch to steal the checkered flag.
RELATED: See Sunday’s entry list | Cup Series standings
“It’s one of those things I wish that I could do a hundred things different, right?,” Briscoe said in an interview Tuesday. “Like, I wish I could’ve caught him earlier so that the one lap, the one opportunity I had to even attempt to pass wasn’t the last lap, the last corner.”
While speaking to the media ahead of Sunday’s race (7 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), Briscoe noted the track conditions last year allowed for multiple grooves to work but in desperation on the final lap, he threw a Hail Mary.
“I still think that it’s hard to say that I would’ve done anything different, truthfully. Just being in that moment, your adrenaline is pumped up,” Briscoe said. “I ran him down almost a straightaway in 10-15 laps, so this whole time you just see him getting closer and closer to me, and your adrenaline and anxiety is getting higher and higher as the laps dwindle down, so being in that position, you’re running dirt.
“I was running the cushion super, super hard, and you just get in this mindset of, ‘You’re dirt racing,’ and if I would have caught him with five to go versus the last lap, it would’ve been a little bit easier to try some different things, but in that moment in time it felt like that was my best opportunity to win the race, and I went into the corner to slide him and really quickly remembered that I was in a car that you cannot throw slide jobs from even half a car length back and I did everything I could at the time to try to stay off of him, and I think even Tyler was talking about in his interview he could hear me running wide open trying to stay off of him.”
It would not be the only time in 2022 Briscoe went for broke in his hunt for win No. 2 of that season.
With two laps to go in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, he tried a similar move that led to the same result as he spun trying to avoid contact with Kyle Larson.
The third-year Cup veteran pointed out that racing fellow dirt enthusiasts like Reddick and Larson the way he did last year is why cordialness played out on pit road over the expected fisticuffs race fans anticipate after short-track competition.
“I think the only reason I didn’t get a black eye after that race was because it was a dirt guy I did the move to,” Briscoe said. “If that’s somebody that isn’t Kyle Larson, Ricky Stenhouse [Jr.], Christopher Bell or Tyler Reddick in the field, I’m probably getting a black eye after, but all four of them guys understood where that move was coming from, and even Tyler said that he would’ve done the exact same thing because that’s just what you do in those situations when you grow up dirt racing.”
RELIVE: Briscoe, Reddick shake hands on pit road
A sluggish start to 2023 for Briscoe means that Sunday’s race could be one the opportunity where the 28-year-old can flip the script on the year so far for the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing team and score his second career Cup victory.
He’s among the favorites with 9-1 opening odds, according to BetMGM.