LAS VEGAS, Nev. – After a 11th place showing at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and finding himself outside the cutline in the playoff standings, Chase Briscoe rebounded with a third-place finish in Saturday night’s Las Vegas 350 at Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway.
But in a city where you’re seemingly common to find people lucky rather than good, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver will leave Las Vegas perhaps feeling the most nervous he’s been in his motorsports career heading to Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway in two weeks knowing that his season is on the line at one of the sport’s most unpredictable race tracks.
“At the start of the race, I felt like we were really good in the daylight when it was really slick,” said Briscoe. “As the sun went down, we made a bad adjustment and it really put us kinda in a box and we lost a lot of track position.
“We had the green flag pit stop and after that I felt like we were definitely the fastest truck on the race track by quite a bit. That last restart. Sucks, I felt like we had a race-winning truck and ran third with it.”
The Brad Keselowski Racing driver found himself grabbing the lead from pole sitter Ryan Truex on Lap 1 in the race and Briscoe led all the laps during Stage 1 to capture 10 vital stage points and 1 playoff point in just his second stage victory of the season.
Throughout the race where clean-air proved to be vital, Briscoe clung to a spot inside the top-five, but when the field went back to green following the race’s final caution with just seven laps left, Briscoe said he had a truck good enough to win, but found himself battling other trucks in the closing laps that allowed leaders Ben Rhodes and Christopher Bell to walk away and leave the reigning ARCA champion with no laps to recover and ultimately his seventh top-five finish of the season.
“Part of racing in this playoff deal where you have guys that aren’t running in the playoffs, they’re still going for race wins and we just got to racing with them really hard and lost too much ground to the leaders,” sounded Briscoe.
Grateful for another strong showing in his No. 29 Cooper Standard Ford, Briscoe heads to the fred’s 250 fifth in the championship standings, two points ahead of teammate Austin Cindric in sixth and 10 points ahead of Kaz Grala who occupies the first position out in seventh.
Briscoe said he doesn’t know what his team’s strategy will be for Talladega, but he said he will pray that he doesn’t get into the dreaded “big one.”
“There’s nothing really you can do when you get to Talladega, there’s so much out of your control,” explained Briscoe.
“I know having a win going into Talladega would certainly be a big deal, but we’re not. We just got to go to Talladega and praying all week we don’t get caught up in the big one, because you know it’s evident.
“I feel like whoever doesn’t get in the big one is essentially going to make the playoffs in the next round.”
Despite a rookie year where Briscoe has shined, the Mitchell, Ind. native feels his year will now be determined by a “lottery race.”
“It’s definitely nerve-racking, just because, I mean your whole season obviously you work for the championship and it kinda comes down to I guess you can say a lottery race because there is
so much that can happen and it seems like anyone can win it.
“We can’t go there and get into a crash because then I feel like you’re losing all chances of making it to Homestead.”
Following a post-race inspection at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, NASCAR said there was an issue with the rear shock on Briscoe’s truck. Any potential penalties will be announced next week.
Should Briscoe face a hefty points penalty for the infraction, his insurance to a placement in the round of six could rely solely on a victory in the fred’s 250 on Oct. 14.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
