Chase Briscoe’s exit from Sunday’s race at Homestead-Miami Speedway was driver error.
On lap 161, the Stewart-Haas Racing driver got loose and hit the wall in Turn 2. The contact resulted in heavy damage to the right side of his Ford Mustang, including one of the control arms — a piece that cannot be repaired on pit road. Because Briscoe was under the Damaged Vehicle Policy, he couldn’t go to the garage for repairs until meeting minimum speed.
It was an unlikely task, so the No. 14 failed to finish the Dixie Vodka 400 and placed 36th on the results sheet. It was his first DNF of the postseason.
“T he driver just made a mistake,” said Briscoe. “I was really, really loose that run. We were really tight every other run. That green-flag run, we tried to get really free on the other side of it… I was hanging on with everything I had. It felt like I was on ice.
“Honestly, I wasn’t even running hard,” he continued. “I was trying to just get to the caution. We kept getting freer. I got sideways and had the wheel all the way to the right and ended up head-on into the wall. It is really frustrating to have it be something of my own doing. I am better than…crashing by myself.”
Briscoe’s Stewart-Haas Racing team was one of the teams that tested at Homestead a few weeks ago and felt they’d have a car to compete. But Sunday ended up being a struggle, which surprised him.
Before the crash, he had been lapped by eventual winner Kyle Larson while running 20th.
“It is really unfortunate,” Briscoe continued. “It makes our job easier next week, I guess. We don’t have to worry about points. We (have) to go to Martinsville and win.”
Briscoe dropped to last on the playoff grid and is 44 points below a transfer spot.