Entering the final regular-season race for the NASCAR Cup Series at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway earlier this month, Chase Briscoe and Stewart-Haas Racing claimed victory in the Southern 500.
It was a fruitful triumph in more ways than one for the team that will close its doors at the end of the season.
For Briscoe, the opportunity to represent SHR in the playoffs for one final time has been something he takes “a lot of pride” in with the Round of 16 elimination race looming Saturday night at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.
“I grew up a diehard Tony Stewart fan and just a fan of Stewart-Haas Racing,” Briscoe explained. “That was my favorite team growing up, so there’s a lot of pride for me that, first off, goes with just getting in the 14 car, let alone wearing that Stewart-Haas Racing badge for 320-plus employees.
“For us to be able to win when we did, in our final season, when we honestly had every reason to give up, and for us to keep fighting and keep going and bringing cars to the race track and to win, did a lot from just a company standpoint. That was the last race before the playoffs started, and if we don’t win that race, then there’s no shot for any Stewart-Haas car to win the championship.
“One of my guys said it best the other day, ‘If we didn’t win that race, everybody was already counting down the days to the end of the season.’ Now, they’re so excited and we’re just counting down the days to the next race,” Briscoe continued.
“It’s changed the entire atmosphere at the shop, the morale, people are excited again, and that’s something that as a company we hadn’t had in a couple of years, so it’s pretty cool to be the guy who gets to bring that to the shop.”
Briscoe is six points above the cutline. While the driver of the No. 14 Ford isn’t safe from elimination, his situation is brighter following a sixth-place finish Sept. 15 at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) Int’l.
He entered Watkins Glen 21 points below the 12-driver cutline.
While many consider Briscoe and SHR a playoff underdog, the combination racked up seven top-10 finishes in the first 25 races of the season.
That included a stretch of seven races of finishing 14th or worse between the end of June to late August.
Combining an inconsistent on-track performance with the fact that hundreds of SHR employees have been scrambling to find work for next season and it doesn’t sound like the makeup of a championship-caliber team.
Briscoe, however, believes his team is dangerous.
“No other team can compare to what we’re going through, and no other team has the emotions that we do, so I think that’s what makes us so scary,” Briscoe said. “We have a lot on our shoulders and there’s a lot of pride that comes along with that.
“We’re just a unique race team right now. And every other team in the playoffs, they’re trying to figure out how to make four cars fast in the playoffs.
“Hendrick’s got four cars in the playoffs, JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) has four cars in the playoffs, our place has four cars, but only one of them is in the playoffs, so all of the focus is on the 14 car, and I think that makes it a little easier for us.”