Briscoe Ends Up With Black Hat Amid Kansas Chaos

Chase Briscoe (Nigel Kinrade/NKP photo)

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Chase Briscoe and the Stewart-Haas Racing Cinderella story made it to the second round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, but the unlikely hero slowly became the villain in the late stages of Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 presented by ESPN BET.

After a clutch win in the Southern 500 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, Briscoe and the soon-to-be-defunct SHR organization surged into the postseason, with consistency in the first round pushing them through to the second.

Following a relatively quiet opening pair of stages at Kansas Speedway in the Round of 12 opener, which included a 10th-place finish in the second stage and one bonus point, the No. 14 Mahindra Tractors Ford Mustang Dark Horse started making some noise … in a less-than-positive manner.

With 32 laps to go, Briscoe was the last car on the lead lap and then-leader Kyle Busch was rapidly approaching. In an effort to avoid going a lap down, Briscoe held his line down the backstretch and squeezed Busch’s No. 8 BetMGM Chevrolet Camaro, upsetting the air around Busch’s car and sending it into a spin after it made slight contact with the outside wall.

The incident ended Busch’s shot at a much-needed win – which would have also extended Busch’s record streak of consecutive Cup Series seasons with a victory to 20 – and put a black hat on Briscoe’s head in the eyes of many fans.

“Yeah, I don’t know if we ever touched,” said Briscoe, who hadn’t seen a replay prior to his television interview. “These cars are so sensitive when you are off to the right. I couldn’t really run on the wall, so I was trying to give him a car width and a couple inches … and saw him get loose as soon as he got to my right rear.

“It didn’t feel like I was trying to do anything. I literally left him the top lane,” Briscoe continued. “These cars … as soon as you get off to the right, especially here when you are running the wall, they just get really loose. I hate it for him. He has been so close all year long and I am a Kyle Busch fan and wanted to see him win to keep the streak alive. I hate that we are a part of that conversation.”

On the following restart with 25 laps left, Briscoe found himself in yet another incident, this time getting tangled up with Portage, Mich., native Carson Hocevar and causing the Spire Motorsports rookie to go around.

When the dust finally settled and the race was over, Briscoe wound up 24th, the fourth-worst finisher among the 12-man playoff field.

“That was a really bad day for us. It was not what we needed, and certainly not what we wanted,” noted the Mitchell, Ind., native. “We will go to work. We are 25 [points] out, but we can still [advance]; it just wasn’t the day we wanted, for sure.”

After entering the race seeded 12th, nine points below the cut, Briscoe left America’s Heartland seeded 11th, 25 points below the cutoff.

Briscoe can still dig himself out of his current hole, however, with two largely wild-card races left until the next playoff elimination. Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway comes up on Oct. 5, followed by the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway ROVAL on Oct. 12.

The good news for Briscoe is that he’s been solid at both venues. Briscoe has finished top 15 in all but one of his seven Talladega Cup Series starts, and he won the inaugural NASCAR Xfinity Series race at the ROVAL when that course debuted in 2018.

Briscoe and the stars of the Cup Series head to Talladega for the YellaWood 500 on Sunday, Oct. 6, with broadcast coverage beginning at 2 p.m. ET on NBC, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.