Concord, N.C. — An Indiana racecar driver could be the next upstart in the sport. Mitchell, Indiana native Chase Briscoe picked up “Most Popular Driver” in the Camping World Truck Series while earning “Rookie of the Year” in 2017.
Briscoe ran the 2017 season in a Ford F-150 prepared by Brad Keselowski Racing owned by NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski. Keselowski made the difficult decision to cease operations in order to possibly pursue a higher tier series.
Recently, the Ford Driver Development program announced big 2018 plans for Briscoe. He’ll pilot a Roush Fenway Racing Ford in 12 Xfinity Series races, run select races in the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge Series, Trans-Am TA2 and serve as a Ford test driver. Biagi-DenBeste Racing will put the 22-year-old in the cockpit for one Xfinity Series race as well.
“I’m excited for next year just because I’m going to be doing multiple things,” Briscoe said. “I’m not committed to just one series, which is good because I probably haven’t run 50 pavement races in my entire life. I feel like I’m at a point where I learn a ton every single race, so to get a chance to run some IMSA and Trans-Am races, in addition to my Xfinity schedule, is going to be a huge deal.”*
Briscoe started in quarter midgets in 2001 and five years later graduated to 410 sprint cars. In 2006 he beat a record set by racing legend Jeff Gordon by becoming the youngest driver to win a 410 sprint car race. Briscoe joined Bill McAnally Racing in the K&N Pro Series West in 2013 after finishing second in the Peak Stock Car Dream Challenge.
After a test session with Cunningham Motorsports in 2015 he was signed to compete in the ARCA Racing Series and made his debut at Lucas Oil Speedway in Indianapolis. He finished tenth in that race and fifth in a race at the Salem Speedway later that year. In 2016 he went ARCA racing full-time and picked up six wins on the way to a series championship by a 535 point margin.
In 2017 he joined Brad Keselowski Racing in the Camping World Truck Series. During the year Briscoe won at Homestead-Miami Speedway, scored a third place at Daytona International Speedway and raced for his first pole position at the Dover International Speedway.
*Quote courtesy of NASCAR.com
