HOMESTEAD, Fla.: Chase Briscoe’s Stewart-Haas Racing team made a rookie mistake at the start of Saturday’s Hooters 250 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, but bounced back in championship-like form to earn a seventh-place finish. 
Before the race, pieces of tungsten and the spacers to keep them in place appeared to dislodge from Briscoe’s No. 98 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Mustang forcing the start of the race to be delayed a few laps and NASCAR sending Briscoe to pit road to fix the issue.
With the field roaring to green, Briscoe sat on pit road and lost five laps in the process as his team made repairs. After joining for the field, Briscoe would lose another lap after having to pit under green for too many crew members over the wall.
Now six laps down to the field, Briscoe appeared to have a long day ahead of him.
However, crew chief Richard Boswell went to work and over the course of the first two stages, through strategy and a fast race car, Briscoe was able to earn five of his six laps back.
Restarting at the rear of the field for the start of Stage 3, Briscoe’s charge was steady and although he was able to fight his way to be the second car on the track, he would not find himself back on the lead lap until green flag pit stops occurred with about 30 laps to go.
Finding himself back on the lead lap again through strategy, Briscoe had hoped for a late-race caution that would allow him to make his final pit stop under green and put himself in contention for his second Xfinity Series win of the season.
Briscoe finally pitted at Lap 151 for tires, fuel and an adjustment – but found himself back one lap down in 15th and with laps winding down.
Briscoe was saved though when the caution waved with seven laps to go with Ryan Sieg spun in Turn 1.
With all of the lead lap cars on pit road, Briscoe was one of 22 cars that gained a lap on the competition and found himself in 11th for the restart at Lap 165.
In the final two laps of the race, Briscoe was able to pass four cars and finish seventh for his seventh top-10 of 2020.
“It was definitely a frustrating day, but we can’t hang our heads,” said Briscoe. “We had another really good, fast race car and we just made a silly mistake this week and forgot something. Last week, I made a silly mistake on pit road, so it all evens out.
“The positive is that we had a really fast race car. In fact, I felt like we were the fastest car by quite a bit. The good thing is we get another chance at it tomorrow and hopefully, we can put it all together and not make any mistakes and get another win.”
Briscoe thought without the ballast issue, he had a car capable of winning and even perhaps dominating the race.
“I think we may have been seven (six) laps down at first before we pulled out, but I knew that we were gonna have good speed,” added Briscoe. “For the most part, everything kind of went our way, but we just had to get a little crazy on strategy. Boswell has always been really good about thinking outside the box and with the speed, we had in the car we were able to take tires and restart with 20-lap old tires and still hold our own.
“If we would have got a caution before we did the green flag pit stop, then I feel like I could have still won the race and that would have been quite the story. Overall, having no practice is tough because you miss little things like that, but on the same side no practice and the amount of speed we’ve had each and every week is just a testament of how good our race cars are and how good of a team we have.”
Even with the good finish, Briscoe would lose the championship points lead however to Noah Gragson who earned numerous stage points throughout the day and finished third.
Entering Sunday’s Contender Boats 250, Briscoe is second in the championship standings, 18 behind Gragson.
Briscoe insisted his team is still making mistakes. Mistakes that are keeping their No. 98 Ford Mustang out of Victory Lane. And they have to fix it.
“Coming into this weekend, I felt like this was a golden opportunity to win two races,” sounded Briscoe. “I feel like Homestead is probably my best racetrack on the circuit. We gave one away today, but nothing is guaranteed tomorrow.
“We still have to put it all together and not make any mistakes. That’s something we haven’t done since Darlington, and we’ve given wins away, truthfully. The last two races now we were, by far, the best car, and made one mistake and it cost us.
“These races aren’t easy to win. You have to do everything right, and we’ve been living proof of that. It doesn’t matter how much speed you have, if you make mistakes in this series, you’re not going to win these races. We’ve just got to clean everything up.”
NASCAR announced Saturday night following the Truck Series race that Briscoe would lose Boswell, car chief Nick Hutchins and engineer DJ Vanderley for the next four races (Homestead, Talladega, Pocono and Indianapolis), due to a safety violation – rule 12.5.2.7.4.d. (Loss or separation of added ballast from the vehicle will result in a four Race suspension of the crew chief, car chief, and head engineer).
SHR has not named replacements at the time of this report being filed.
Denny Hamlin lost his crew chief, car chief and engineer on his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing NASCAR Cup Series team following a similar infraction during last month’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
