Chase Briscoe is blunt about what this year means for him at Stewart-Haas Racing.
“I feel like this is one of those years where it’s really going to determine kind of how my future lays out,” he told NBC Sports. “If I go out this year and have success and contending for wins and running up front, this is one of those years where for the future, like contracts, everything could totally change. Where If I have another bad year like last year, it could totally change the trajectory of my career.”
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His past two seasons have been inconsistent.
Briscoe, 29, won a race and made the playoffs in 2022, finishing ninth in the points.
He was winless last year and placed 30th in the points, saddled by 14 finishes of 25th or worse and a 125-point penalty for a counterfeit part found on the car after the Coca-Cola 600.
“We really weren’t racing for anything but trying to win,” Briscoe said of the races after the penalty. “So if we were second or third, whatever that day, it really didn’t do anything for us. So, it’d be nice just to be racing for something again. We were still out there racing but it was different (being so far back in the points).”
Briscoe’s bold comments are not new. His career has been at a crossroads many times and he still managed to reach the Cup Series.
He said before the 2020 Xfinity Series season that he felt he needed to win eight races to have a chance to move to Cup. He won nine and reached the title race, leading to a his current ride in the No. 14 for SHR in 2021.
When he feared his options were running thin in 2018, he won the inaugural Charlotte Roval Xfinity race, leading to a full-time Xfinity ride the next year.
“I feel like, for whatever reason, I have always performed better under pressure,” Briscoe said. “Even if that’s compartmentalizing something for myself, even Xfinity when I said I had to win ‘X’ amount, it’s something for me to kind of strive for that I know is capable. Just I feel like a lot of people probably don’t think is capable.
“Kind of the same thing I feel this year. I’ve got to not make something up — I feel like everything I said is very valid and true — but to some people it probably doesn’t as much as what I feel like it means. Kind of the same with the (win declaration in 2020). Did I probably have to win eight races to move to Cup realistically? Probably not. I knew at the same time if I won only two races I probably wasn’t going to Cup.”
He looks to excel this season, as he did in past years when he felt that his future was at stake.
“Hopefully (this season) plays out like all those other years,” he said.
