Chase Briscoe might have been an unexpected last-minute addition to the NASCAR Cup Series playoff field, but now that he’s here, the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing driver and his team have adopted a “why not us” attitude.
The group has the perfect example to aim for — one Briscoe has mentioned multiple times since Sunday night’s Southern 500. In 2011, Briscoe’s hero and team co-owner, Tony Stewart, went winless in the regular season and then won half of the races in the postseason en route to claiming the championship. The same belief of being capable of coming from behind to win a championship is once again floating around the team.
“When you look at the makeup of Stewart-Haas Racing, a lot of it all stems from Tony and the mental toughness and things that Tony’s been able to do,” Briscoe said. “Momentum is a crazy thing in sports. I related it to N.C. State in the NCAA basketball tournament. They go from not even having a prayer to make the NCAA tournament to winning the ACC tournament and going all the way to the Final Four, and I feel like we certainly can relate to that where when you have momentum and confidence, it goes such a long way.
“I don’t see what team right now would have more momentum and confidence than we do. It’s just a different feel for the playoffs than I’ve ever had.”
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Briscoe qualified for the postseason in 2022 after winning the spring race at Phoenix Raceway. It left his team thinking about the postseason for 23 weeks, whereas now the scenario is different, considering how Briscoe made the field.
“I’m excited and really feel like if we can get to Phoenix, we can get it done there,” Briscoe said. “We’ve already proven it once.”
Stewart-Haas Racing does not have any other driver championship eligible aside from Briscoe. While the organization certainly wanted more, it goes in Briscoe’s favor that all attention be paid to helping his efforts for the rest of the season.
There also hasn’t been any turnover on Briscoe’s road crew or pit crew since the announcement was made that the organization is shutting down. Some who worked in the race shop have left, but Briscoe will go to battle with his core group of guys.
“The day we found out,” said Briscoe, “all of the [No.] 14 guys, at least road crew guys, went over and met up at the setup plate, and all literally looked at each other in the eye and went one by one in a circle and said, ‘I’m in, I’m in, I’m in,’ until the end of the year. Even if we ran 35th, we were sticking it out until the end, so no worries on [our] side.
“The other teams have had a couple of people leave. But I think it’s going to be way harder for guys to leave now, knowing that there’s a chance we win a championship.”
And that’s the type of change in dynamic that’s occurred at Stewart-Haas Racing since Briscoe triumphed at Darlington Raceway.
“If a Stewart-Haas car didn’t win Sunday night, Tuesday morning when everyone came in after Labor Day would have probably been the gloomiest, darkest shop in the entire industry,” he said. “And now we’re probably the most electric, fired-up shop. Or at least the most fired-up I’ve ever seen Stewart-Haas. Everybody has a pep in their step. Everybody is excited and if Stewart-Haas car didn’t win Sunday night, then it would have been hard, realistically, to get cars to the racetrack these final 10 weeks, and things would probably have been getting shut off and things like that. So, for us to be able to win that race is pretty dang cool from the standpoint of what it means for Stewart-Haas Racing.
“So, I’m definitely excited. I feel like it’s one of those things that we all internally feel like we can honestly go win the championship, and that’s crazy probably coming from a guy that wasn’t even in the playoffs until (a few) days ago. But I think internally, everyone believes it. We saw Tony do it in 2011 and we’re kind of going with that same mindset of if we can win the Southern 500, why can’t we win more?”