Briscoe on the brink despite ‘knowing that we’ve been as good as we have’

Chase Briscoe is on the top side of the NASCAR Cup Series playoff grid entering Sunday’s elimination race at the Charlotte Roval, but he doesn’t feel assured of advancing.

“It’s tough because I feel like, from a performance standpoint, we’ve certainly been performing,” Briscoe said this week. “Outside of New Hampshire, it’s really the only time we haven’t gotten a ton of stage points, and that’s put us where we’re at right now. So, it’s crazy how the format is with the reset. It makes it where you have to be really, really good all throughout the race, which is how it should be.”

Briscoe and the No. 19 team have indeed performed. It started with a tear through the first round of the postseason with one victory, over 400 laps led, and leading all drivers in points earned. There have now been five postseason races, and Briscoe has finished inside the top 10 in all five races.

The worst performance and result? New Hampshire. Briscoe finished 10th, earning two stage points.

Joey Logano, the reigning series champion, is on the bubble going into Charlotte. Ross Chastain is the first driver on the outside looking in, with a 13-point gap between him and Logano. Briscoe sits above them both with a 21-point advantage, and it’s a race amongst the three as Briscoe sees it.

“We’re really just racing the [No.] 22 and the [No.] 1,” Briscoe said. “If we can go and outrun them in both stages and the race, then we can move on no matter what. But it’s obviously not that easy, either. So, it’s tough knowing that we’ve been as good as we have, and there is the potential to be knocked out.

“But it all comes back down to the regular season, and not performing in the first half of the season to get all the stage points and playoff points to put ourselves in a better position.”

Briscoe has one top-10 finish in four starts at the Roval. But given that it has a history of dramatic postseason moments, and how the race plays out strategically, Briscoe admitted he’d rather be somewhere else this weekend.

“Yeah, I think just because of how the Roval plays out in the playoffs,” he said. “It is an extremely hard place to go and be near any cutline. Whether you’re 30 points above or five points above or whatever, because you have to go get the stage points. Then it’s going to get flipped, and you’re going to be starting 20th to 30th. At the ovals, it’s kind of more natural, and you kind of stay around the track position you’ve had, whereas this weekend, the whole field is going to flip it on you, other than the playoff guys.

“So, then they all start back there, and you see it (get crazy) in Turn 7 and Turn 1 – all the corners where stuff can happen. It’s tough one this weekend. I’d definitely rather go to a more traditional place for a cut race, but it’s exciting to watch, I know that.”

Of his two previous postseason appearances, Briscoe has once before made the Round of 8.