You sometimes get the impression that Chase Briscoe feels the need to prove he truly belongs at Joe Gibbs Racing. Briscoe, who somewhat surprisingly is starting to emerge as Toyota’s best bet to win a championship, came over to JGR last year after the collapse of Stewart-Haas.
And immediately, he understood he had to change his mindset. As Stewart-Haas crumbled, there were no expectations to win, only worries about where you were going to wind up when the end finally came. Because of that, for a number of years prior to its shutdown S-H had not been competitive. If you were a driver, you got as much out of the car as you could knowing the best you could hope for was a mediocre finish.
Not so at JGR. Everyone there goes into each race confident any of its cars can win every time out. That put pressure on Briscoe to perform at the same level, to prove he belonged. He had to get used to cars capable of doing anything he wanted them to do, of being competitive in any race.
In his first year with JGR and using the Old Guy Sport competition index to measure his performance against both the other three JGR cars and the rest of the field, Briscoe outran every Toyota on the track except his JGR teammate, Denny Hamlin, and Chevy’s Kyle Larson. The OGS competition index is used because it is a better indication of competitiveness than the NASCAR point system, which rewards finishing races, not competing in them.
While he has slipped a bit this year; Hamlin, Larson and JGR teammate Christopher Bell are currently ahead of him in the OGS standings as the season nears its end, he is still running well. And as the other Toyotas have faltered in their chase for the championship, it is Briscoe who has picked up the flag.
Last week’s race at Las Vegas is a perfect example. Hamlin, who has struggled some of late, spun out all by himself coming out of a corner and damaged his front splitter, effectively taking him out of contention. Bell lost his power steering, and couldn’t overcome that. And Ty Gibbs, the fourth JGR entry, was penalized for speeding on pit road.
Briscoe dominated the race and held off the red-hot Larson to get the win. This after a fourth place finish at Kansas, a race he felt he should have won. Again, using the OGS competition index as a guide, Briscoe has scored 94 points in the last two events, far more than any other Toyota (Hamlin is next with 37) and more than anybody but Larson, who continues to play King Kong against the field. Larson had 115 points.
But talking about the win, Briscoe’s insecurity appeared to come through. “I put pressure on myself after last week (Kansas),” he said according to NASCAR.com’s website. “You don’t want your guys to lose confidence in you. I felt like after last week; I drove to the lead and you lose the race with six to go.
“I don’t really feel like I made a mistake per se last week,” he continued. “I mean, I was just really loose, and I could have done a better job of defending Larson, but still, you don’t want it to be two weeks in a row where you lose a race in the last five to 10 laps. I just feel like your confidence from the team guys, in their driver, can go away really quickly.”
This is in sharp contrast to someone like Hamlin, who definitely feels he has a different rapport with his team and considers mistakes, both by the driver and the team, to simply be part of racing. “Just trying to get back the track position we lost and got up in the marbles (little balls of rubber that come off the tires as they wear) and spun out,” Hamlin told NBCsports.com.
“There’s nothing you can do now postrace,” Hamlin added. “Just got to go on to the next race and see if we can find a way to win. Charlotte (on deck Sunday) should be good for us but today certainly didn’t live up to what we expected.”
Like Hamlin, Bell just kind of shrugged off the power steering issue even though it impacted him more because he’s still recovering from a broken wrist suffered at Michigan in June. “My wrist is fine,” he said, again according to NBCsports.com. “My hands are a little bit shaky and tingly but I’m going to be okay.
“Disappointing not to be able to capitalize on a day like today when other guys had issues. It looked like an opportunity to make up some points and it didn’t happen. Just going to go out there and race. We’ve got five more (races) left and I’m going to try and win a couple.”
But Bell didn’t see the need for his crew to explain what went wrong and hasn’t lost any confidence in them because the power steering went out. It’s on to the next race. And as time goes by, Briscoe will settle in at JGR. He’s in a position he’s never been in before, but he can handle it. Gibbs wouldn’t have hired him if he couldn’t.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Charlotte: 1-Kyle Larson, 2-Denny Hamlin, 3-Christopher Bell. Last year’s winner at Charlotte: Not applicable, last year’s race at Charlotte was run on the road course. This year, it is on the oval.
Top five at Charlotte last year: Again, not applicable.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport Las Vegas picks: 1-Hamlin, 2-Larson, 3-Bell. Las Vegas winner: Chase Briscoe. OGS season record: 13-13.
OGS competition index top 10 after 26 races: 1-Hamlin 611 points, 2-Larson 526, 3-Bell 467, 4-Briscoe 415, 5-Tyler Reddick 413, 6-Ty Gibbs 354, 7-Ryan Blaney 342, 8-Joey Logano 308, 9-Shane van Gisbergen 226, 10-Chase Elliott 192.
OGS competition index top 10 on intermediate tracks (Tracks most like Charlotte): 1-Hamlin 465 points, 2-Larson 328, 3-Reddick 301, 4-Bell 268, 5-Briscoe 250, 6-Elliott 120, 7-William Byron 119, 8-Blaney 81, 9-Alex Bowman 80, 10-Austin Cindric 79.