Briscoe pleased with the day despite coming up short in All-Star Race

Chase Briscoe had a shot at one million dollars, and that’s all he could ask for after how his weekend started at Dover Motor Speedway.

Briscoe came up short of Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin on Sunday. Hamlin, the best car in the non-points race, overtook Briscoe for the race lead and the win with 30 laps to go.

“I just didn’t have the rear grip [at the end],” Briscoe said. “Anytime I was not the leader, I would be really, really good, and as soon as I would take the lead, I would go into the corner on the next lap, and I’m way too loose. I honestly kept trying to back up to him, just not trying to run too hard to burn my right rear off, and that’s what happened. Around that lap 30 mark, I would start getting really swingy, and then I would get passed for the lead, and then I would be able to always run him back down because my car would kind of come back to me being in dirtier air.

“So, yeah, I just needed more rear grip taking off when I was in the lead. It was hard because we started 16th and 22nd or whatever, so we were never adjusting in our car for clean air, and when we got up there, we just weren’t as good when [Hamlin] was up there a lot today.”

Briscoe had the lead coming off the final restart of the afternoon with 52 laps to go. He had come off pit road from the final pit stop in second position to Hamlin, but then beat him on the restart.

The final segment started with Briscoe lined up second, courtesy of his averages from the first two segments. Briscoe finished fourth in the first segment after starting the race 16th and second in the second segment.

It was a rebound day after Briscoe bounced off the wall at the exit of Turn 2 in practice on Friday. Briscoe said his No. 19 team had to basically rebound the car, and praised them for getting it to the point of being so competitive.

The downside to Sunday was that it was not a points race, and Briscoe would have gladly taken those points.

“This is what we should be doing week in and week out, and we’ve just executed the last two weeks,” Briscoe said of being fourth at Watkins Glen and second at Dover. “Our speed is clearly there; it’s just a matter of putting that speed to use and capitalizing on it. So, yeah, I’m really excited for next week. I think we’ll have a good opportunity to score a lot of points. So, hopefully, we do that.”