RICHMOND, Va. – When the 2019 NASCAR Xfinity Series started, Chase Briscoe already was playing catch-up. After all, it was his first full-time season in the series, and Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Cole Custer already had two full campaigns under his belt.
But Briscoe has made enormous strides as the season has progressed, not by emulating Custer but by doing things differently. He enters the first round of the Playoffs tied for fifth with Justin Allgaier.
“I think Cole certainly is still a little bit better than me, as far as consistently week-in and week-out, Briscoe said on the eve of the Go Bowling 250 at Richmond Raceway, the Playoff opener for the series (7:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). “But if you go back and look at the last month and a half, we’ve been able to out-qualify him some, practice relatively close, and last week (at Las Vegas), we were able to run him down, pass him and drive away.
“As a team, we felt like we would hit it earlier (in the season) than we did. Honestly, it took about until the second Iowa (which Briscoe won) before we felt like we were hitting on all cylinders and just know what I like in the race car. My crew chief (Richard Boswell) had never really worked with a dirt guy before…
“I feel like now we run totally opposite setups from the No. 00 (Custer) every week, where at the beginning of the year we started off different, then we tried to run what they ran, and it just didn’t fit my driving style, plain and simple. Now we have a set setup that we pretty much unload with every week, and it’s been night and day difference for me—the feel in the race car and what I’m looking for.”
Source: Reid Spencer | NASCAR Wire Service
