Chase Briscoe is in the Cup Series playoffs for the first time. It is only his second season in NASCAR’s top division. Yet against all odds, his championship hopes are still alive into the Round of 8.
How did a driver who had only four top 10s in 2022 before the postseason began outlast former champions and perennial title contenders in the playoffs? It’s taken a little bit of luck, but Briscoe has helped his case by grinding out quality finishes and making the most of good opportunities in the playoff races.
For most of the year, that wasn’t the case. Despite scoring his first Cup Series win at Phoenix Raceway in March, Briscoe and his team experienced problems putting complete races together. He had a couple near misses at Bristol Motor Speedway on the dirt and in the Coca-Cola 600, two events where he ran down the leader in the closing laps but spun himself out trying to make a last-ditch pass for the win. Briscoe was able to recover in the Coca-Cola 600 to finish fourth, but that would be his last top-10 finish of the regular season.
For weeks afterward, whenever the No. 14 team looked like they could contend for wins, some misfortune would foil its plans. Things got particularly bad late in the last five races of the regular season. Briscoe’s best finish during that stretch was 20th at Michigan International Speedway, and it seemed like he couldn’t escape bad luck even with fast cars.
At Richmond Raceway, Briscoe drove from mid-pack into the top five before a cockpit fire forced him to pit road under green with about 100 laps to go. A week later at Watkins Glen International, Briscoe was lightning fast in the rainy conditions to begin the race, but he suffered a mechanical failure in the second stage from which the team never recovered its track position. Then, Briscoe’s regular season came to an end at Daytona International Speedway in a multi-car crash on lap 125 while racing for the lead.
Every season in the Cup Series, there are always a few drivers who struggle to run well week by week but make the playoffs by virtue of a win. Briscoe had all the makings of being one of those drivers in 2022. By the end of the regular season, he had fallen all the way to 17th in overall points and had gone 12 races without a top-10 finish. The logical assumption was that the No. 14 was heading for a first-round elimination. Getting caught up in a crash in the Southern 500, the first playoff race, only put Briscoe further in the hole.
Yet…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Frontstretch…