Chase Briscoe Makes His Second NXS Start For SHR At Talladega

Date: April 28, 2018

Location: Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway

Layout: 2.66-mile oval

• Chase Briscoe will start his second race in the No. 98 Stewart-Haas Racing with Biagi-DenBeste (SHR) Ford Performance Mustang Saturday afternoon at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.

• As a member of the Ford Performance Driver Development Program, Briscoe also will race the SHR Mustang May 26 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway’s 1.5-mile oval,Sept. 29 on Charlotte’s “roval,” and Oct. 20 at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City. Briscoe has an additional 12 Xfinity Series races with Roush Fenway Racing in 2018, as well as several sportscar races.

• Briscoe will be joined in the Talladega field by SHR teammate Cole Custer in the No. 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang.

• The No. 98 Ford makes its fifth appearance of 2018 at Talladega. Aric Almirola finished 35th Feb. 17 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway, Kevin Harvick won Feb. 24 at Atlanta Motor Speedway and finished 19th at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth April 7. Briscoe finished 23rd at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway in his SHR debut April 13.

• Briscoe has made four starts in Xfinity Series competition this season. He finished 15th at Atlanta, 11th at Texas, 22nd at Bristol and 26th at Richmond (Va.) Raceway last Friday.

• In 2017 Truck Series competition, Briscoe earned four poles and won the season-ending Ford EcoBoost 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Briscoe’s 10 top-five finishes and 14 top-10s enabled him to make the Truck Series playoffs, where he finished sixth in points and scored the series’ rookie of the year and most popular driver awards.

• Briscoe won six races en route to the 2016 ARCA Series championship.

• Briscoe finished 22nd in his lone start in Truck Series competition at Talladega Oct. 14, 2017. He finished third in his lone ARCA start at Talladega April 29, 2016.

• The 23-year-old Mitchell, Indiana native is a third-generation driver. His grandfather Richard Briscoe is a legendary Sprint car team owner, and his father Kevin Briscoe raced Sprint cars for more than 20 years and won more than 150 feature events.

• Briscoe’s first time behind the wheel of a racecar came in 2001 in a Quarter Midget. In 37 starts driving 410 Sprint cars, Briscoe racked up eight top-fives and 17 top-10s, including a win in the last race of the season, where he broke Jeff Gordon’s record as being the youngest driver (13) to win a 410 Sprint car race.

What are your thoughts on Talladega?

“Talladega is its own animal. There is so much out of your control there. I have had decent success at the (restrictor)-plate races, but they aren’t my favorite, by any means. The No. 98 Ford is really fast on the plate stuff. I think we are going to be really good. You just have to stay out of trouble there. That’s the name of the game. If you are running on the white-flag lap, then you still have a chance.”

• Richard Boswell is the son of Dickie Boswell, who successfully campaigned a Late Model Stock car out of the family’s hometown of Friendship, Maryland. The elder Boswell ultimately competed in 57 Xfinity Series races spread over six seasons in the 1980s. Although he never made it to the NASCAR Cup Series, the senior Boswell totaled four top-five finishes in the stepping-stone division to the Cup Series.

• Boswell followed in his footsteps, climbing behind the wheel and winning multiple World Karting Association national titles in 1998. He competed against Rodney Childers, who serves as Kevin Harvick’s crew chief at SHR in the NASCAR Cup Series.

• After graduating to Late Model racing in 2001, Dale Earnhardt Jr. noticed Boswell’s talent and brought him to his JR Motorsports team in 2006. Boswell drove the team’s entry in the Hooters Pro Cup Series, making 19 starts and posting three top-five finishes while also working on JR Motorsports’ Xfinity Series program. Earnhardt financed Boswell’s lone Xfinity Series start in 2009 at Memphis (Tenn.) Motorsports Park, where Boswell qualified third and finished 23rd.

• Boswell decided to hang up his helmet and work on his new goal of becoming a top crew chief in NASCAR. He simultaneously earned a mechanical engineering degree from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

• Boswell honed his craft at JR Motorsports and even advanced to the Cup Series in 2014, when he worked on Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 48 team with driver Jimmie Johnson before returning to JR Motorsports in 2015. Two years later, SHR formed its own Xfinity Series team and Boswell was chosen to lead the team’s part-time effort, which complemented the full-time program being run for then-rookie Cole Custer.

• Boswell resides in Mooresville, North Carolina, with his wife Ashley and their three daughters Elizabeth, Grace and Juliette.