LAS VEGAS — Chase Briscoe got a speeding ticket away from Las Vegas Motor Speedway and one on pit road Sunday (March 15).
Despite this, his recovery to finish eighth in the Pennzoil 400 at Vegas is finally something to smile about after the nightmare start to the season he has had.
“You can’t blame today on bad luck,” Briscoe said. “That’s just me not doing my job by speeding on pit road. So yeah, I was lucky today to catch that caution, finally. We were like the 13th car one lap down and was able to drive all the way up there and then finally was able to get the caution.”
On the restart after the final caution, Briscoe was shotgunned to the field due to receiving the free pass. He had 50 laps to make his way through the field and salvage what first appeared to be another disastrous day in the points standings.
Despite this, Briscoe said he could have contended for the win.
“I felt like my car was certainly a top-three car,” Briscoe said.
“I think we restarted 24th there and I got to seventh, and then I just kind of died. It’s very similar to yesterday’s race where you start so far back there and you just burn all your stuff up trying to get up there and then you kind of die off at the end.”
Briscoe was the headliner of a trio of Joe Gibbs Racing cars that received speeding tickets. Race winner Denny Hamlin got busted, as well as Ty Gibbs. Despite this, JGR put all four cars into the top eight spots.
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This is all the more impressive due to this rendition of the Vegas race being the third-fastest Cup race at the track, clocking in at two hours, 42 minutes and 54 seconds. Briscoe was not aided by high attrition in his charge back towards the front, having only the Connor Zilisch incident in the final stage to get him back in contention.
It is as good a tale of resiliency any team has had in a fair amount of time, and absolutely something Briscoe and the No. 19 team can be proud of.
“I think it’s big for us to get some momentum back,” Briscoe said. “We obviously didn’t get any stage points today, but I would think maybe we moved up from 34th. So that’ll be nice to just get things back in the right direction… The speed has certainly been there, so it’s just a matter of time and today it was nice to put a day together.”
With that settled, the most pressing question becomes: Did Briscoe get a speeding ticket in Vegas?
“Yes, I did,” Briscoe said.
“I think they said I was 0.4 [mph] over on pit road, I was 12 [mph] over on the road. I would have rather had two of those than one of [these].”
That boy is fast. I just hope he isn’t snakebit this year.
The car is fast!