Notes of Interest
● The Enjoy Illinois 300 NASCAR Cup Series race Sunday at Gateway International Raceway near St. Louis will serve as Chase Briscoe’s third Cup Series start at the 1.25-mile oval. The Stewart-Haas Racing driver came off the truck strong in the inaugural Cup Series race at Gateway in 2022 by winning the pole and leading the first 27 laps. But a flat left-rear tire scuttled that strong performance, jettisoning Briscoe to a 24th-place finish. In his return to Gateway last year, Briscoe and his No. 14 team searched for speed in relation to their counterparts, coming away with a 34th place finish on the back of a weekend’s worth of struggle. With Gateway beckoning once more, Briscoe and Co. hope the third time is the charm.
● Briscoe’s very first experience at Gateway came in 2017 in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. Driving a Ford F-150, he took to the flat, egg-shaped oval quickly, winning the pole and leading twice for a race-high 88 laps before finishing second to John Hunter Nemechek.
● The St. Louis area is a bastion for grassroots racing, especially dirt racing, and Briscoe is seizing the opportunity. On Thursday night, he will run with the Xtreme Outlaw Midgets at Doe Run (Mo.) Raceway. On Friday night, Briscoe will campaign his 410 sprint car at Jacksonville (Ill.) Speedway. And on Saturday night after he practices and qualifies for the Enjoy Illinois 300, he will embrace the race entitlement’s message by competing with the Xtreme Outlaw Midgets one more time at Wayne County Speedway in Wayne City, Illinois.
● Overstock.com adorns Briscoe’s No. 14 Ford Mustang Dark Horse at Gateway. The partnership amplifies the recent relaunch of Overstock.com, home of crazy good deals that offer quality and style for less. Overstock.com is for the savvy shopper who loves the thrill of the hunt and it includes product categories customers know and love, like patio furniture, home furniture and area rugs, while reintroducing jewelry, watches and health-and-beauty products.
Chase Briscoe, Driver of the No. 14 Overstock.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse
In your first NASCAR Cup Series start at Gateway, you won the pole and proceeded to lead the first 27 laps before finishing 24th. How were you able to take to that track so well and so quickly?
“St. Louis is a place, even going back to the Truck Series, that for whatever reason I’ve always had pretty good speed there. I’ve always enjoyed going to that racetrack. It’s probably the second- or third-closest track to my hometown, so it’s always cool to have a lot of people there. It’s in a great pocket for motorsports. There are a ton of race fans in that area. I’ve always enjoyed going there. And the racetrack, for whatever reason, has always been pretty good to me. It’s one of those tracks where there are two totally separate ends and your car is never going to drive well in one of them. It’s kind of a short track, but it’s an intermediate, with kind of road-course braking. There are just a lot of different things that go into that racetrack and I’ve always enjoyed it.”
What happened in that first race at Gateway to put you 24th when it ended?
“I was able to get on the pole, lead the first however many laps, but then I blew a left-rear tire, and that kind of put us behind the rest of the day.”
Last year’s race at Gateway seemed to be an all-day struggle for you and the No. 14 team. With your first race there going relatively well where you had speed, and your second race going not so well, what are your expectations for your third Cup race at Gateway?
“Hopefully, we’re definitely more like the first year. It seemed like that second year we went back, everybody else just had gotten way better. I don’t know if we were necessarily any worse, it’s just that everybody else picked up their game. I guess it’s the only positive of struggling that bad last year, we knew we had to put a lot of work into it this year. I felt like we’ve put a lot of effort into it and I feel like we were in a pretty good spot at the simulator. It’s hard to say until you actually get there and do it, but I certainly feel pretty good going into it.”
Prior to racing at Gateway in a Cup car, you ran there once in a Truck, and did really well, winning the pole, leading twice for a race-high 88 laps, and then finishing second. What allowed you to be so comfortable at a track you hadn’t ever been on before?
“It just kind of fit my style. It’s definitely a place where the harder you can get into the corner, the better you are, and it has that road-course kind of style to it. You can move around the racetrack quite a bit and find lines. It’s one of those deals where some tracks just kind of click right away, and that was one of those racetracks that’s been kind of good from the speed standpoint. Hopefully, it’ll be the same. I definitely feel like I’ve led a lot of laps there, but have never been able to actually win the race, so hopefully it’ll be different this time.”
Is Gateway similar to other flat ovals, like Phoenix, where you finished ninth earlier this year?
“(Turns) three and four are more similar to Phoenix, or even like Loudon or any of those flat tracks just because it has a long, flat corner. But (turns) one and two are extremely tight and it’s just a ton of braking. We downshift from fifth all the way down to third gear, so you’re just super busy. I would say it’s more like a super-fast Martinsville corner. You pair those types of corners, and then you look at the racetracks that they kind of compare to, and they’re some of the tracks that we typically run well at. I hope it all kind of goes our way.”
You had a prime tire and an option tire for the NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro (N.C.) Speedway. How did you like it and would you like to have those same options available at Gateway and at other tracks on the schedule?
“I definitely think there’s a lot to learn from the All-Star tire stuff, but it’s also a little tough with North Wilkesboro being a fresh repave. It’s not going to have the tire wear that you would typically have at other racetracks. But I feel like you could definitely take a lot of what we learned and be more aggressive with it. It’s just hard to find that balance. If you’re on the Goodyear side of it, you don’t want to be too aggressive to where we’re all blowing tires. But being aggressive is kind of the last choice we have if we’re not going to add horsepower.”
When you go to a venue like St. Louis, where it has the iconic Gateway Arch, do you do some exploring, or do you treat it like a business trip and hunker down in the motorcoach?
“St. Louis is one of those places where I try to go race as much as I can. I’m going to run Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I’ll run the midget Thursday and Saturday night, and I’ll run the sprint car Friday night. There’s such a pocket of motorsports in that region, especially dirt tracks. There’s a ton of dirt tracks within a two-hour radius, and it kind of works out where I can go run some dirt races. I think the last three years now I’ve run dirt every time we’ve gone to St. Louis. I haven’t really explored the city a whole lot. I’ve been to St. Louis quite a few times. I only grew up maybe four hours from there, so I’ve been there a few times and kind of seen the city. But, yeah, every time we go to St. Louis, I’m dirt racing.”
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