Chase Briscoe was on his way to The Flat Track at New Hampshire Motor Speedway when he first had an indication that something was amiss.
Briscoe was preparing to defend his Sprint Cars of New England race in a winged sprint car when he received a message from Christopher Bell.
Just hours earlier, Bell let it slip that Briscoe would likely be his teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing in 2025.
“It was funny,” Briscoe said. “Christopher texted me, ‘Man, I messed up so bad.’ I was like, ‘What happened? What do you mean?’ He said, ‘Go look at Twitter.” Then I ran the sprint car race over there and I had no signal. I couldn’t get a single text to go out. I couldn’t receive any texts. I couldn’t get anything to load. Literally, the last text I got was Christopher saying, ‘I messed up. Go look at Twitter.’
“I really didn’t know what had happened for about three or four hours when I was over there. A couple of people had a signal and told me what had happened. I didn’t even get to see the video until I got back like at 12:30-1 a.m. I didn’t really know what to expect. But it was funny.
“It was weird knowing that something was out there and not having any ability to see what it was or what happened. Then people were coming up to me at the track and I had no idea what they were talking about at first. It was definitely an odd night.”
Of course, Kyle Larson’s tweet fueled the fire. After seeing Bell’s video, Larson said he couldn’t wait to send his response, though he intentionally confused Briscoe with another Chase–Elliott, his teammate.
“Man, totally blindsided by this news! Wishing @chaseelliott the best on his new adventure at @JoeGibbsRacing Have enjoyed you as a teammate! (Smiley face) Good Luck #19”
Briscoe found the humor in Larson’s tweet as well.
“My first thought was, man, I need to call Rick (Hendrick),” Briscoe said straight-faced. “If Chase (Elliott) is going into the 19, then the 9 is going to be open.”
Briscoe can’t be frustrated with Bell. After all, it was his long-time friend who tipped him off about the upcoming opportunity at Joe Gibbs Racing.
“I’ve known Christopher since I was 11 or 12 years old,” Briscoe said. “We were literally best friends. We talked every day. We lived together for a little bit. So it’s cool. Our friendship—we’ve always been really good friends—but it has gone in phases as we started competing against each other with different teams. We kind of grew apart doing our own thing.
“But Christopher has always believed in me. We’ve never been in the same opportunities at the same time. So it will be fun. It will be fun to get to work with Christopher a lot.”
Briscoe had an uneven start to a season that took an unexpected turn when Stewart-Haas Racing announced it was ceasing operation at the end of the year.
“It’s been weird—super weird—even from a competition standpoint,” Briscoe said. “We started off pretty strong and then tapered off. Then we got going again and the announcement comes out from SHR, then trying to keep people. Every time I see them, it’s like, ‘How did the job interview go?’ We’re all trying to find stuff.’
“It’s just weird. I kind of experienced this a little bit when BKR (Brad Keselowski Racing) shut down—but even there, I probably wasn’t as close to my guys as I am now after working with them for four-something years now. It’s just a weird year on the track, off the track. There’s just a lot of stuff going on in my life with the twins coming.”
Just recently Briscoe released his management team and opted to negotiate his next deal on his own.
“There’s just been a lot of change I feel has happened this year,” Briscoe said. “It’s been an odd year, for sure. But one of the things I’ll look back on—and appreciate—is I think I’ve learned a lot about how to handle stuff on and off the race track.
“Even going through this whole process and handling it on my own, reminds me of when I first moved down to Charlotte and was trying to grind and find something. It’s been fun to go back to that, truthfully.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at: [email protected].
