Chase Briscoe has become a revelation at NASCAR’s 1.5-mile tracks. And it goes beyond his win last Sunday at Las Vegas.
Heading into Vegas last week, Briscoe’s underlying metrics were among the best in NASCAR. But the results weren’t consistent. That changed, and Briscoe can now add his win at Vegas to the victory he achieved earlier in the year at Chicagoland.
A fourth-place finish at Kansas is sandwiched between his Chicagoland and Vegas victories among 1.5-mile intermediates. That gives him an outrageous average finish of 2.0 in his last three races at the 1.5-mile tracks.
Briscoe had two slip-ups before the Chicagoland race, when he finished 23rd at Texas and 34th at Charlotte. But he also took eighth at the first Las Vegas race and third at the first Kansas race, giving him four top-five finishes and five top-10 finishes in seven races at the intermediates.
Chase Briscoe Has Momentum Heading Into Charlotte
Charlotte gives Briscoe a fourth-straight opportunity to show that his recent success at the 1.5-mile intermediates isn’t a small sample size. While the 34th-place finish at the Coca-Cola 600 may give onlookers pause, the result is misleading.
In NASCAR.com’s recent power ranking, Pat DeCola noted that “Even Charlotte offers more encouragement than Briscoe’s spring result suggests: he ran second, third and fourth in the three stages of the Coca-Cola 600 before a late crash left him saddled 34th.”
If Briscoe didn’t get caught up in a crash, then the first Charlotte race becomes a different conversation. Briscoe looked poised to drive away from the Coca-Cola 600 with, at worst, a top-10 finish.
Regardless, he is now averaging a finish of 10.57 at the intermediates. If Briscoe stays out of trouble this time, he should be one of the better drivers on the track this Sunday.
Briscoe’s Chances Will Get More Interesting With Another Strong Finish
In NASCAR.com’s The Chase Report, Briscoe’s win and overall dominant performance moved him up 39 points in the Chase, where he is now in sixth place. He was by far the biggest mover, gaining 25 more points than the second-biggest mover, Kyle Larson, who was up 14 points.
For his performances at Kansas and Las Vegas, Pat DeCola also said in the Power Rankings piece, “The standings still say he’s 84 points behind Larson, which feels steep. The last two races suggest Briscoe might be one of the few cars capable of doing something about it, and it’s perhaps a much, much closer race than the numbers suggest.”
The biggest challenge for Briscoe is coming up in the final four races of the season after Charlotte. Phoenix, Talladega, Martinsville, and Homestead-Miami will be on the docket, and they’re all different track types.
Charlotte may be Briscoe’s immediate strength, and his finishes at Phoenix (37th) and Talladega (29th) earlier in the year cost him ground. However, a tire issue sent him into the wall at Phoenix, while a damaging pit stop hurt him at Talladega, where he won last fall.
He took a solid 14th-place finish at Martinsville in the spring, and last season at Homestead, Briscoe took fourth. So, those last four races further show how pivotal the upcoming race at Charlotte is to set him up for a late-season run at Kyle Larson.
Chase Briscoe’s 1.5-Mile Numbers Have Become Impossible to Ignore