Chase Briscoe burning for a strong run at Atlanta Motor Speedway
ATLANTA, Ga. — Mitchell's Chase Briscoe had a solid race last weekend when the NASCAR Cup Series ran the road course at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wi.
The second-year Cup competitor started second and led a stage to earn some bonus points, but once the field cycled through his No.14 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang couldn't generate enough to claw back to the front.
So he settled for 14th place, and now he's hoping to get back into the upper-tier Sunday when the series goes back on the oval Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway for Atlanta 400, the 19th race of the season.
The event starts at 3 p.m., EDT, and will be 260 laps (60/100/100) for 400 miles over the 1.54-mile oval layout. It will be televised on USA Network, while PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio have the radio broadcast.
Briscoe carrying Cummins on car
Briscoe's No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing car will once again carry the colors of Rush Truck Centers/Cummins Engines this Sunday. He hopes to build off his ninth top-15 finish of the season. Briscoe started in the second position, narrowly missing out on his second pole of the season, and won the first stage of the 62-lap race at Lake Elkhart.
Indiana-based Cummins, from car owner Tony Stewart’s hometown of Columbus, is also along for the ride at Atlanta. Cummins is a corporation of complementary business segments that design, manufacture, distribute and service a broad portfolio of power solutions. It is best known for its diesel truck engines. Since its founding in 1919, Cummins now employs approximately 61,600 people and serves customers in about 190 countries and territories through a network of some 8,000 wholly owned and independent dealer and distributor locations.
Atlanta takes more speed
When the Cup Series visited Atlanta Motor Speedway earlier this year, the track had undergone an offseason reconfiguration to create tighter, superspeedway-type racing on its 1.54-mile oval. The racing surface was narrowed from 55 feet to 40 feet and the banking was increased to 28 degrees — the most of any intermediate track on the schedule.
Briscoe started the race from the pole after qualifying was cancelled due to inclement weather, and he led five of the first six laps, his first laps led at Atlanta. He went on to finish 15th, tying his career-best Atlanta finish in his third start there.
Briscoe wasn't certain if that appearance fully prepared for the different nuances now taking shape at Atlanta.
“I’m not sure," he said. "You might not be able to go back in your notebook as far as you’d like because it’s more of a superspeedway race now and there’s not a ton you can do from a car standpoint.
“Atlanta is one of the harder races now because it’s like a superspeedway race with a little bit of balance focus when it comes to setup. Just the runs and how they come together. You go to Daytona or Talladega and it’s two and a half miles and it looks like things just happen so fast, but the runs develop slower on the bigger track. At Atlanta, you take a mile out of the racetrack and things really do happen that much faster. The momentum, the runs – your spotter can only talk so fast to let you know what’s coming.
"I feel like everyone is still kind of even now, but just having experience there will be big on the mental side. Mentally, that was the hardest race I’ve ever run. This race being 100 miles shorter should be better. But it’s still going to be way more intense than most of these other races we run."
Outside of the Cup Series, Briscoe also has three NASCAR Xfinity Series starts at Atlanta with a best finish of ninth in 2020, and a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series start there in 2017.
Starting final push to playoffs
Briscoe is 16th in the driver standings with eight races remaining in the regular season. He currently holds a spot in the 16-driver playoff field by virtue of his March 13 win at Phoenix Raceway. This race marks the beginning of the second half of the season, and he knows it's time to rev things up toward a playoff run
"It’ll be interesting to see how that race plays out," he said. "We’re coming toward the end of the regular season. There’s an opportunity for a lot of guys to get their first win of the year there and Daytona, or for someone else to add another one and better secure their spot. So we’re all going to be up on the wheel and hopefully we can have a good day and help our position in playoffs."
Contact Times-Mail Sports Writer Jeff Bartlett at jeffb@tmnews.com, or on Twitter @jeffbtmnews.
This article originally appeared on The Times-Mail: Mitchell NASCAR Cup Series competitor Chase Briscoe braces for Atlanta
