DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Chase Briscoe is still in a getting-to-know-you phase. His last five seasons at the now-shuttered Stewart-Haas Racing operation were the peak of familiarity, with drivers and team members attending birthday parties for each others’ kids, baby showers and other family functions.
That all changed for Briscoe this offseason with his arrival at Joe Gibbs Racing, where he signed on as Martin Truex Jr.’s successor in the No. 19 Toyota. By most accounts, he’s already made progress in terms of fitting in, but the label of being the “new guy” still applies.
“I never moved as a kid growing up, but I imagine this is what it would feel like,” Briscoe says. “You know, you’re still going to school, but it’s all new faces and new people, and the teachers teach things a little bit different. It’s definitely the same, but it’s very, very different.”
Briscoe and his No. 19 team made noteworthy strides in the name recognition department soon after their arrival this week at Daytona International Speedway, securing the pole position for Sunday’s Daytona 500 (1:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). It’s a pleasant opening weekend honorific for the 30-year-old driver and the new group surrounding him before their first season together launches.
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Big things are expected this year after Briscoe was tapped for the best available free-agent ride in the Cup Series garage, this after a lively Silly Season shuffle up and down the grid. Briscoe maximized the end of his tenure with the No. 14 team last season at Stewart-Haas Racing, turning in a sterling, victorious run in the Southern 500 to snap up a spot in the Cup Series Playoffs. In the wake of SHR’s death knell, a perfunctory performance from Briscoe could have been expected — even excused — but he continually found ways to overachieve. His postseason run ended in the Round of 12.
Briscoe says he always told himself he could be a Cup Series champion but that, realistically, the odds of that happening at Stewart-Haas were relatively small. It was a bittersweet realization because the No. 14 that Briscoe inherited from former boss and role model Tony Stewart carried sentimental weight. This season, with the resources of Joe Gibbs Racing at his fingertips, that championship ambition feels within reach.
“The Xfinity (Series) stuff at SHR, I felt like was top of the field, and I felt like I was able to perform there,” Briscoe said. “But on the Cup side, I’ve never really been in that top-tier program and really felt like I can do what I’m capable of. So that’s the thing I’m most excited for is, at SHR, I would get four or five races a year when my car was capable of running up front and winning, where now I’m going to have 20-something opportunities to do that. So that’s the thing I’m probably the most excited for.”
The experience for Briscoe has been revelatory so far, and that starts at the top. The hands-on, precise involvement of Coach Joe Gibbs permeates many facets of the four-car operation, and Briscoe has found out first-hand about Gibbs’ “people person” reputation. He’s also immersed himself in the organization’s hive of technology.
“Honestly, the biggest difference is just Coach,” Briscoe says. “Nothing against Gene (Haas) or Tony, but just they ran other businesses where like Coach, this is his business. This is what he eats, sleeps and breathes every single day, and he’s there every single day, so that’s been the biggest difference. And I was even telling my wife that the other day, I was like, yeah, if we run bad one week, like it’s going to be weird having the boss on Monday be like, ‘Well, why do we run so bad?’ because I just … I’ve not had that.
“So that part’s been the biggest difference is just how, from the top down, how into it he is. But then the data side, I would say, has been very, very eye-opening. I literally told my wife just last week, too, I said it’s kind of crazy that they picked me because of all the data and analytics they had on me. It’s just nuts how much in-depth they are with the whole field, where each guy stacks up from passing rate, restart rate, all this stuff that I didn’t think anybody even paid attention to, and they they definitely have the data for it. So it’s been very eye-opening from that standpoint, for sure.”
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Chemistry-building has also thrived in the new partnership. Briscoe says he’s felt out the team-meeting dynamic in JGR’s early season huddles, following the lead of fellow drivers Christopher Bell, Ty Gibbs and Denny Hamlin — all of whom have multiyear careers with the organization. No. 19 crew chief James Small noted how he’s found Briscoe exploring areas of the shop where drivers rarely go, making a positive first impression in the offseason.
“It’s been very plug and play,” Small told NASCAR.com, “and I think overall, from a whole global company perspective, we do things very different than Stewart-Haas when it comes to drivers and what we do to hold them accountable in certain ways and things like that. So very, very different, but he’s taken to it like a duck to water, to be fair. As I said before, it’s been pretty seamless, in my opinion. I think there’s been a lot of information for him. It’s probably been quite overwhelming, I’m sure, and eye-opening at the same time for him on how we do certain things, but I know he’s told me numerous times, it’s like, ‘Man, I don’t know how you guys even lose races, with all the things you think about and do and all that.’ So that’s been pretty cool to see.
“But yeah, everybody, the atmosphere around the whole team, even the whole company, with him coming on board our team, everybody’s super-pumped up.”
There was more reason to be stoked after Wednesday night’s qualifying effort, one that gives him a clear windshield view for Sunday’s “Great American Race.” Briscoe said his phone had swelled to 300-plus text messages after the feat, and that the full magnitude was still sinking in.
“To be on the pole of the Daytona 500 is a really, really big deal,” Briscoe said. “Yeah, just special, special thing for me to do to even start off with a new team, new company, Bass Pro, all the things that go along with it. It’s pretty special, for sure.”