KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Chase Briscoe’s weekend at Kansas Speedway was anything but straightforward.
Briscoe’s No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota was one of a handful of cars to have tires go down in Saturday’s practice session. With damage sustained, the No. 19 crew worked on repairs and opted to start from the rear of the field with the fixes.
Despite having to cut through the swath of the Cup Series field all day long, Briscoe rallied to net a fourth-place finish in Sunday’s AdventHealth 400, his best result by far in nine career starts at the 1.5-mile track.
RELATED: Race results
“Our day was definitely just weird, right?” Briscoe said. “Having to go to the back after yesterday, tearing the whole bottom off and was OK the first run there. We were kind of going forward, and we had the green-flag pit stop and we had a wheel come off or something. Came out probably three-quarters of a straightaway behind the 5 [Kyle Larson], and was able to run him down, pass him, get back on the lead lap. So I knew my car was pretty good if I could ever get back up there.
“Then the second stage, I had a bad restart and the car just kind of went away for whatever reason. That whole second stage and start of the third stage, we made an adjustment and it came to life. I went from like 18th to 10th on a restart, and then 10th to sixth and just had a really, really bad vibration at the end. I couldn’t even see where I was going, so I was trying to just limp it around.”
Briscoe added that he had dealt with vibrations all day, but running third in the closing laps was when he started getting a feel similar to Saturday.
“That one was definitely the worst,” Briscoe said. “It just freaked me out because it was the exact same feeling I had in practice when I blew the tire yesterday. It really started coming with eight to 10 to go. I felt like I could have ran third for sure if it wasn’t for that.”
Race winner Kyle Larson dominated the field all day long as he begins the meat of his busy month of May that will conclude with his second attempt at the Indianapolis 500-Coca-Cola 600 double.
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Larson led 221 of the 267 circuits, which is the most ever for a Kansas race, and crossed the 10,000 laps led mark in his Cup career.
Having raced with Larson for many years, Briscoe continues to be in awe of what the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports driver can produce amid a never-ending racing calendar.
“Kyle’s an incredible race car driver. I always say he’s the greatest of all time, right?” Briscoe said. “Me and my dad talk about it a lot where Kyle goes and runs a sprint car race, and it could be for $5,000 to win or $100, it doesn’t matter to him. He’s willing to risk it all and he doesn’t even think about it. It definitely separates him.”
With a third of the season under his belt, Briscoe is still getting his bearings with his new Joe Gibbs Racing team. Results have been mixed with five top 10s in 2025 for the fifth-year Cup veteran, but four finishes outside the top 20.
The speed is there, but the consistency of execution and having complete weekends at the track are still a work in progress for Briscoe and crew chief James Small.
“He’s open to suggestions. Still, I feel like [there’s] a lot of things that he can improve on,” Small told NASCAR.com. “I think we have a pretty good understanding of the car every week now. It’s just about execution on the day. When you have a clean day, we can run like this. We’ve proved all year. We’re still hurting ourselves. Our stage points is a [expletive] joke and we just need to start the races up front and maintain track position, and our life will get a lot easier.”
As Briscoe gets more accustomed to piloting the No. 19 Toyota, there’s still potential to be unlocked for the 30-year-old Indiana native.
Though he scored a pair of wins and made the playoffs twice in his first four seasons with the now-defunct Stewart-Haas Racing, Briscoe is now poised that his cars can take him to where he wants to go.
“Kevin Harvick says it all the time, you can’t drive a slow car fast,” Briscoe said. “Every time we came to Kansas, I ran 25th to 30th. As soon as I got out [today], I said, ‘Well, I guess it maybe wasn’t me this whole time.’ We just always go backwards every race and you can only drive the car as fast as it’ll go. JGR’s cars’ potential is just unbelievable compared to what I’m used to. I don’t know why that is, but it’s definitely mind-blowing. That’s what I’ve raced against my entire career for sure.”