NASHVILLE Tenn. – Following a much-needed break from points racing and a fourth-place result in last weekend’s NASCAR All-Star Open, Chase Briscoe and the No. 14 HighPoint.com/Thorlabs Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) head to Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway with a plan to follow HighPoint Fundamental No. 33 – Keep Things Fun.
Fundamental No. 33 states: “While our passion for excellence is real, remember that the world has bigger problems than the daily challenges that make up our work. Stuff happens. Keep perspective. Don’t take things personally or take yourself too seriously. Laugh every day.”
Inaugural Ally 400 is Sunday, June 20 at 3:30 p.m. EDT.
Music City might be the perfect place for the No. 14 team to showcase its passion for excellence and ability to keep things fun, especially since it has a leg up on the competition. Though NASCAR hasn’t competed at Nashville Superspeedway since the Xfinity Series last raced on the 1.333-mile, concrete oval on July 23, 2011, and the Cup Series has never competed at the facility, Briscoe has already visited there twice this year as the designated Ford participant in Goodyear tire tests. The time on track has given the No. 14 team a head start on preparation heading into Sunday’s inaugural Ally 400.
“It’s special. For me, in my rookie season, every track I go to in the Cup Series is special, but to be a part of the first one is going to be cool,” said Briscoe. “There’s only a first race at a racetrack one time – and then the second time, not that it’s not special, but it’s not as special as the first time – so to be able to experience that as a rookie is going to be super cool. There’s a lot of great racing history and heritage in the Nashville area. I remember running ARCA in Nashville at the fairgrounds and just how many people come out and how special it is to get a run in that area, so I’m excited. It’s one of the relatively closer racetracks to my hometown, so I know I’ve got a lot of people from Southern Indiana driving down to watch this race, and it’s just going to be special to be a part of it, and to have a sold-out crowd. That’s something that on the Cup side a lot of the guys are used to, but a sold-out crowd is something I’ve never gotten to experience because of COVID and everything else, so I’m excited to experience that this weekend, for sure.”
Joining in on this weekend’s fun is HighPoint.com customer Thorlabs, a vertically integrated photonics products manufacturer. Thorlabs was founded to serve the laser and electro-optics research market and has extended its core competencies to play an ever-increasing role serving the photonics industry at the research end, as well as the industrial, life science, medical, and defense segments. With both companies headquartered less than 10 miles from each other in New Jersey, HighPoint helps Thorlabs to create business value and solve challenges with technology solutions, services, and partnership. Over their 30-plus-year history, Thorlabs has grown from a Newton, New Jersey-based business to a global operation conducting business in nine countries.
Briscoe shared his impressions of the track.
“I didn’t know much. It was hard for me to even find video on the place from Xfinity races in the past, so I was kind of going there with an open mind,” Briscoe added. “I knew that they had done a lot of testing there in the past with the Cup cars and things like that, but I was surprised, honestly, with how much brake we were using and just how much speed we carried. That kind of caught me off guard. I think passing is going to be a little challenging, but the good cars are definitely going to rise to the front at a place like this just because handling is going to be quite a bit of an issue, I think. I’m very curious to see what the resin is going to do versus having traction compound there and where they placed it. When I was testing, there were only three cars total and it was pretty cool out, so I’m curious as to what more cars will do to the racetrack, and the heat, as well.”
“I’m just a dirt guy, so, to me, it doesn’t matter Concrete, pavement, blacktop, whatever the surface is, to me it’s all the same if it’s not dirt, so I don’t necessarily get too tied up in the differences,” he added. “For me, they all drive relatively the same. They look different and how the rubber gets picked up under caution and things like that is different but, from a feel standpoint, I don’t know that I notice a difference from a concrete track to an asphalt track or whatever. I’m probably not the best guy to ask that just because I’ve never really been able to tell a huge difference in grip level or how it drives.”
After 16 Cup Series races this season, Briscoe sits 26th in the driver championship and leads the Rookie of the Year standings by 100 points over Anthony Alfredo.
