KNOXVILLE, Iowa — NASCAR Cup Series rookie Chase Briscoe is returning to his dirt-track roots to compete in Friday night’s Corn Belt 150 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Knoxville Raceway.
Briscoe will drive the Roper Racing No. 04 entry at the historic half-mile dirt track known as The Sprint Car Capital of the World.
“I’m definitely excited to get to Knoxville, the Sprint Car Capital of the World,” said Briscoe, who won the Truck Series race at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway in 2018. “I’m really excited to see how Knoxville races in the Truck Series. I think it’s gonna be a really good layout for the trucks and just kind of how the stock cars react on dirt. I think that will be a really good track.
“Eldora is almost the perfect track for those, but if the track is prepped right, Knoxville could be something that we haven’t seen in a long time on dirt in the stock car with a big cushion and things like that, so I’m excited to get there.
“Anytime I can go run on the dirt it’s always a good time and it’s fun to go run with the Roper guys,” Briscoe added. “They’re a small group, a really small team out of Texas and just a really fun group of guys to go race with, so I’m excited to get over there and, hopefully, give them a really good run.”
After running at Knoxville, Briscoe will head to Atlanta Motor Speedway to compete in Sunday’s Cup Series event for Stewart-Haas Racing.
“I grew up dirt racing, so, for me, anytime I can go back and run dirt, I want to do it. It’s something I really enjoy doing,” he said. “It’s a passion of mine, so, for me, I want to be able to go and run the dirt races that NASCAR has and just, I guess, give my support of it because I think it’s something great for the sport.
“I think it’s something that we need in NASCAR is to have that gap in between the dirt stuff and the NASCAR world, so, for me, that’s something as long as I can always do it, I’m gonna go run every dirt race I can that’s in NASCAR and outside of that I just think you’re a better race car driver whenever you’re racing.”
Briscoe believes it is good for NASCAR and good for dirt racing to have drivers going back and forth between the two disciplines.
“I think it’s just really good for the sport, especially these last couple years with Larson running as many sprint car races as he has and other guys going and doing that,” Briscoe said. “I feel like you’ve seen more sprint car people that in the past wouldn’t really watch NASCAR, but now they do because they have people to cheer for or root for on the NASCAR side, and the same with NASCAR people that probably would have never watched a sprint car race, now they can watch guys that they watch on Sunday go race sprint cars at the local track or whatever and it gives them a reason to go that they probably wouldn’t have gone if it wasn’t for that.
“I think it’s just a really good crossover for our sport and sprint car racing or dirt-track racing in general. The more fans that we can get, the better, I think, for all involved.”
Tickets are still available for the Corn Belt 150. Visit KnoxvilleRaceway.com for more information.