Briscoe Takes Las Vegas Xfinity Checker

Chase Briscoe leads Austin Cindric at Las Vegas Motor Speedway

(LAS VEGAS, NV – RIS – FEB 23, 2020) Chase Briscoe gained only one net position in the rain delayed Boyd Gaming 300, but considering he started second on the field, his win capped a Ford sweep of the day. Joey Logano took his Ford to victory in the Pennzoil 400 earlier.

After rain (!) in Las Vegas cancelled both Cup and Xfinity qualifying, then delayed the start of the Xfinity race, Chase Briscoe grabbed the lead from Myatt Snider on the first lap but Justin Allgaier took over and led from the third lap until a spin due to a failure on Daniel Hemric's car brought out the caution one lap before a scheduled competition caution. Briscoe was first out of the pits and into the lead, followed by Brandon Jones. Leader Allgaier pitted with his car at an odd angle and slowed the stop, dropping back to sixth.

Briscoe, Chastain, Cindric, Jones, and Allgaier held the top five positions at the end of the first stage. With Briscoe first off pit road and more wet spots appearing on the TV camera lenses and the caution got extended before the red flag flew and the cars stopped on Pit Road with only fifty of the scheduled 200 laps on the board.

Restarted Sunday evening after the finish of the Pennzoil 400, Chase Briscoe wasted no time in taking the lead, followed by Austin Cindric. A fairly smooth first few laps was punctuated by a spin by Jesse Little, with Justin Allgaier 'winning' the second stage, followed by Cindric, Bricoe, Annett and Harrison Burton.

The top two mirrored their positions on the restart with Chastain moving into third. On lap 124. Cindric scored the pass for the lead, just before Ross Chastain saved the No. 10 car in a slide that looked more like a dirt tracker.

Allgaier fell back to third place, with Briscoe soon taking the position from him.

Cindric pitted out of the lead on lap 143 for tires and fuel, handing the lead to Briscoe until he pitted the next lap. Scheduled green flag stops cycled through the field with Cindric getting the lead back by passing Ray Black Jr before Black pitted.

Noah Gragson made contact with Myatt Snider in the fourth turn, sending Snider sliding through the grass. With 36 laps to run, the leaders pitted for tires, with Briscoe beating Cindric off of pit road and into the lead, followed by Sieg, Moffitt and Allgaier as the top five.

Briscoe went on to lead the final 36 laps of the race with Cindric following almost three seconds back.

RICHARD BOSWELL, Crew Chief, No. 98 Ford Performance Racing School Ford Mustang – WOULD YOU AGREE CHASE IS BECOMING ACCLIMATED TO ALL STYLES OF TRACKS? "Yeah, from an on-track standpoint absolutely. I think the one thing that a lot of people don't get to see is just the humbleness that comes with him and his positive attitude and his way to relate to all the guys and sponsors and everybody, so from an off-track and on-track standpoint that's what I'm most impressed with is just his ability to relate with the people. On-track, you hit the nail on the head. He's good everywhere."

CHASE BRISCOE, No. 98 Ford Performance Racing School Ford Mustang – THOUGHTS ON BEING THE POINTS LEADER. "Yeah, it's so early, but definitely it's nice to get a win early. I think obviously we were hoping that we could get a win at some point in the year, we expected to, but to get it before Phoenix is definitely nice just because we can go there and kind of try some stuff because I feel like that's one place I need to get way better at. That being said, it's nice to take the point lead. It doesn't mean as much this early in the season like you said, but it's a good confidence-booster for all the guys and it goes a long way when you're that first garage stall with your guys and their work ethic and everything else. We knew that we could go win races, but to get one this early in the year I think it'll go a long way, especially on this west coast swing. It's hard to stay motivated and for us to win the first one that definitely goes a long way."

YOU SAID YOU WANT TO WIN EIGHT RACES. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO WIN SO EARLY? "I think that statement I was saying it's not like it's a definite make-or-break thing if I win eight or so races. That's just personally what I feel like I need to do to prove that I'm ready for Sunday racing. It's hard to win eight if you wait until halfway through the year, so it definitely makes it nice to kind of get one early, but, yeah, it's nice just to win in general whenever you do it. Just winning, to be able to show that we've won on different types of race tracks goes a long way. Hopefully, we can continue to do that and go next week and win on a two-mile track."

IS IT TOO EARLY TO MAKE A STATEMENT OR DO YOU FEEL YOU JUST KEEP DOING WHAT YOU'VE BEEN DOING? "Not that it's a definite statement, but I think it's always nice whenever you can win. There's a lot of talk at least on the XFINITY side of who is gonna be those next guys and hopefully us winning shows that we can be one of those guys. If we do our job every week, I feel like we can contend at any race track. It's not a definite statement, but it shows that we're capable of winning and that's something that internally I feel like we all knew, but you never know until you do it. It makes a little bit of a statement, but not a definite statement that this is who you've got to go through to win the championship by any means. There are still a lot of guys that are gonna be really good and truthfully we've got to get a lot better too to be that definite guy."

WHAT DID YOU FEEL YOU DID RIGHT THIS WEEK? "Have a good pit stop at the end, that's for sure. That was key. The race was really weird. I feel like every time I came to Vegas you can run up to the wall or even run the middle really well and the bottom kind of goes away after seven or eight laps. The beginning of the race I felt like I was really, really good and I had clean air obviously and we lost the lead and my car completely changed. It took a total 180 and it was hard to tell if it was really just dirty air doing that or the sun going down. At the end Cindric obviously ran away with it there for a while and then when I was able to get the lead I kind of ran away with it and it seemed like tonight was the fastest I've ever felt like I've gone around Vegas just because we had so much grip and so much speed around the bottom. It was almost like driving a truck how hard you could drive the thing, so clean air was crucial just because it was so hard to make a pass. I probably gave up a ton of time trying to make the top work and even trying to make the middle work and pass guys and just had to try to stay disciplined to run the bottom and obviously it would prevail."

DID YOUR NAME COME UP IN THE MIX WHEN NEWMAN GOT SIDELINED? "No, nobody reached out to me. I told Ford that if it was something for a couple weeks I would be willing to do it, but I never heard anything from anybody or never even knew if my name was in the mix. I tried to stay out of it truthfully. I'm focused on trying to win an XFINITY championship and trying to win as many races as I can, so I'll just let that try to do the talking."

HAVE YOU HEARD FROM YOU DAD YET? "I haven't even been on my phone yet. He won't be disappointed, he's obviously gonna be thrilled, but he's only missed two races my entire career on the NASCAR side and this is the first one that I won at, so I know he was sending me texts all day long and telling me to be disciplined on the bottom. I'm sure if he would have come to victory lane tonight he would have ripped me pretty good about how I was not being patient hitting the bottom. He's definitely my hardest critic and I know he would have been pretty mad at me tonight by how I ran, that's for sure."

AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 22 MoneyLion Ford Mustang – DID YOUR CAR JUST GO AWAY FROM YOU LATE? "A little bit. It was definitely a track position sensitive race after the sun went down. We knew it was gonna tighten up and tried to adjust for it on the final stop and didn't get quite enough, and then obviously lost a little track position. I tried to hang it wide-open on Chase's door, but track position is pretty important and then just fell off too tight following him there. It was pretty bottom dominant. It was really weird the track didn't take any rubber today even in the Cup race. That was different than what I expected, but overall a great day for our MoneyLion Ford Mustang and we'll try again next week at Fontana."

IS THIS THE FIRST OF MANY BATTLES WITH CHASE THIS YEAR? "That's about as tame as it's gonna be, I'd say (laughing). It's a testament to everything the guys at Ford Performance have done. This is a brand new body kit for us, so it shows the hard work that those guys at the Tech Center and the guys in Michigan have been doing to get us a little more speed and it's obviously showing a bit. Chase and I are getting a little more experience and having a little fun racing together, so it should be a fun year that way."

Unofficial Results: 24th Annual Boyd Gaming 300: February 23, 2020
Las Vegas Motor Speedway: 1.5 Mile Paved

Fin, St, Driver, Car, Laps, St1, St2, Tms Led, Laps Led, Playoff Pts, Pts, Status
1) 2, Chase Briscoe, No. 98 Ford Performance Racing School Ford, 200, 1, 3, 5, 89, 6, 58, Running
2) 6, Austin Cindric, No. 22 MoneyLion Ford, 200, 3, 2, 5, 39, , 52, Running
3) 32, Ryan Sieg, No. 39 CMR Roofing Chevrolet, 200, , 7, 1, 1, , 38, Running
4) 7, Noah Gragson, No. 9 Bass Pro Shops/BRCC Chevrolet, 200, 8, , 1, 2, , 36, Running
5) 3, Harrison Burton #, No. 20 Dex Imaging Toyota, 200, 7, 5, , , , 42, Running
6) 9, Brandon Jones, No. 19 Menards/Jeld-Wen Toyota, 200, 4, 9, , , , 40, Running
7) 8, Michael Annett, No. 1 AHA/Pilot Flying J Chevrolet, 200, 6, 4, , , , 42, Running
8) 4, Justin Allgaier, No. 7 BRANDT Chevrolet, 200, 5, 1, 3, 63, 1, 45, Running
9) 12, Riley Herbst #, No. 18 Monster Toyota, 200, 10, 8, , , , 32, Running
10) 25, Ross Chastain, No. 10 Chevy Accessories Chevrolet, 200, 2, 6, , , , 41, Running
11) 19, Brandon Brown, No. 68 Vero Chevrolet, 200, , , , , , 26, Running
12) 11, Justin Haley, No. 11 LeafFilter Gutter Protection Chevrolet, 199, 9, , , , , 27, Running
13) 20, Josh Williams, No. 92 Silverton Hotel & Casino Chevrolet, 199, , , , , , 24, Running
14) 22, Jesse Little #, No. 4 Series Seating Chevrolet, 199, , , , , , 23, Running
15) 13, Brett Moffitt(i), No. 02 Robert B Our Chevroley Chevrolet, 199, , , , , , 0, Running
16) 1, Myatt Snider, No. 21 TaxSlayer Chevrolet, 199, , 10, , , , 22, Running
17) 18, Ray Black II, No. 07 CDA Tech Chevrolet, 199, , , 1, 2, , 20, Running
18) 23, Alex Labbe, No. 90 Larue Snowblowers Chevrolet, 198, , , , , , 19, Running
19) 14, Joey Gase, No. 93 NVDonor.org Chevrolet, 198, , , , , , 18, Running
20) 15, Joe Graf Jr #, No. 08 CORE Development Group Chevrolet, 198, , , 1, 4, , 17, Running
21) 34, Chad Finchum, No. 13 MBM Motorsports Toyota, 198, , , , , , 16, Running
22) 5, JJ Yeley, No. 52 Chevrolet, 197, , , , , , 15, Running
23) 17, Robby Lyons II, No. 15 Sunwest Construction Chevrolet, 197, , , , , , 14, Running
24) 21, David Starr, No. 6 TeamJDMotorsports.com Chevrolet, 196, , , , , , 13, Running
25) 26, Matt Mills, No. 5 J F Electric Chevrolet, 196, , , , , , 12, Running
26) 29, Timmy Hill(i), No. 61 Toyota, 195, , , , , , 0, Running
27) 31, Joe Nemechek(i), No. 47 Charlie Daniels Chevrolet, 193, , , , , , 0, Running
28) 27, Vinnie Miller, No. 78 Koolbox Chevrolet, 192, , , , , , 9, Running
29) 28, Mason Massey, No. 99 Gerber Collision & Glass Toyota, 190, , , , , , 8, Running
30) 33, Kyle Weatherman, No. 74 Finlay Cadillac Chevrolet, 190, , , , , , 7, Running
31) 16, Jeremy Clements, No. 51 Repairables.com Chevrolet, 178, , , , , , 6, Rear Gear
32) 35, Tommy Joe Martins, No. 44 AAN Adjusters Chevrolet, 144, , , , , , 5, Engine
33) 24, BJ McLeod, No. 0 TeamJDMotorsports.com Chevrolet, 132, , , , , , 4, Ignition
34) 30, Stephen Leicht, No. 66 MBM Motorsports Toyota, 101, , , , , , 3, Suspension
35) 10, Daniel Hemric, No. 8 South Point Hotel & Casino Chevrolet, 34, , , , , , 2, Suspension
36) 36, Landon Cassill, No. 89 Visone RV Chevrolet, 31, , , , , , 1, Vibration
(i) Ineligible for driver points in this series, (#) Rookie

Time of Race: 2 Hrs, 19 Mins, 44 Secs.
Race Length: 200 Laps, 300. Miles
Average Speed: 128.817 MPH
Margin of Victory: 2.874 Seconds

Stage 1 Top 10: 98, 10, 22, 19, 7, 1, 20, 9, 11, 18
Stage 2 Top 10: 7, 22, 98, 1, 20, 10, 39, 18, 19, 21

Race Comments: Chase Briscoe won the Boyd Gaming 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, his third NASCAR Xfinity Series victory.

Prior to the start, the following car dropped to the rear of the field under penalty for the reasons indicated: No. 21 (backup car), No. 47 (missed driver intros).

Caution Flags: 5 for 28 laps;
Laps: 20-22 (No. 8 Incident Frontstretch [47]);
47-54 (Stage 1 Conclusion [52]);
71-76 (No. 4 Incident Turn 2 [13]);
92-95 (Stage 2 Conclusion [5]);
163-169 (No. 9, 21 Incident Frontstretch [18]).

Lead Changes: 17 among 7 drivers;
M. Snider 0;
C. Briscoe 1-2;
J. Allgaier 3-19;
A. Cindric 20;
R. Sieg 21;
C. Briscoe 22-46;
A. Cindric 47;
J. Graf Jr # 48-51;
C. Briscoe 52-76;
J. Allgaier 77-91;
A. Cindric 92;
J. Allgaier 93-123;
A. Cindric 124-143;
C. Briscoe 144;
N. Gragson 145-146;
R. Black II 147-148;
A. Cindric 149-164;
C. Briscoe 165-200.

Mobil 1 Driver of the Race: Chase Briscoe, No. 98

Starting Line Up: 24th Annual Boyd Gaming 300, Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Pos, Driver, Car, Reason
1) Myatt Snider, No. 21 TaxSlayer Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 1st
2) Chase Briscoe, No. 98 Ford Performance Racing School Ford, 2019 Owner Points 2nd
3) Harrison Burton #, No. 20 Dex Imaging Toyota, 2019 Owner Points 3rd
4) Justin Allgaier, No. 7 BRANDT Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 4th
5) JJ Yeley, No. 52 Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 5th
6) Austin Cindric, No. 22 MoneyLion Ford, 2019 Owner Points 6th
7) Noah Gragson, No. 9 Bass Pro Shops/BRCC Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 7th
8) Michael Annett, No. 1 AHA/Pilot Flying J Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 8th
9) Brandon Jones, No. 19 Menards/Jeld-Wen Toyota, 2019 Owner Points 9th
10) Daniel Hemric, No. 8 South Point Hotel & Casino Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 10th
11) Justin Haley, No. 11 LeafFilter Gutter Protection Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 11th
12) Riley Herbst #, No. 18 Monster Toyota, 2019 Owner Points 12th
13) Brett Moffitt(i), No. 02 Robert B Our Chevroley Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 13th 
14) Joey Gase, No. 93 NVDonor.org Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 14th
15) Joe Graf Jr #, No. 08 CORE Development Group Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 15th
16) Jeremy Clements, No. 51 Repairables.com Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 16th
17) Robby Lyons II, No. 15 Sunwest Construction Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 17th
18) Ray Black II, No. 07 CDA Tech Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 18th
19) Brandon Brown, No. 68 Vero Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 19th
20) Josh Williams, No. 92 Silverton Hotel & Casino Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 20th 
21) David Starr, No. 6 TeamJDMotorsports.com Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 21st
22) Jesse Little #, No. 4 Series Seating Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 22nd
23) Alex Labbe, No. 90 Larue Snowblowers Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 23rd
24) BJ McLeod, No. 0 TeamJDMotorsports.com Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 24th
25) Ross Chastain, No. 10 Chevy Accessories Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 25th
26) Matt Mills, No. 5 J F Electric Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 26th
27) Vinnie Miller, No. 78 Koolbox Chevrolet, 2019 Owner Points 27th
28) Mason Massey, No. 99 Gerber Collision & Glass Toyota, 2019 Owner Points 28th
29) Timmy Hill(i), No. 61 Toyota, 2019 Owner Points 29th
30) Stephen Leicht, No. 66 MBM Motorsports Toyota, 2019 Owner Points 30th
31) Joe Nemechek(i), No. 47 Charlie Daniels Chevrolet, Past Champion
32) Ryan Sieg, No. 39 CMR Roofing Chevrolet, 2020 Owner Points 6th
33) Kyle Weatherman, No. 74 Finlay Cadillac Chevrolet, 2020 Owner Points 18th
34) Chad Finchum, No. 13 MBM Motorsports Toyota, 2020 Owner Points 23rd
35) Tommy Joe Martins, No. 44 AAN Adjusters Chevrolet, 2020 Owner Points 27th
36) Landon Cassill, No. 89 Visone RV Chevrolet, Random Draw
(i) Ineligible for driver points in this series, (#) Rookie

-XXX-

John Davison

Long-time RIS staffer, beginning in the mid-80s. Charlotte, NC area local contact.

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Volume 2020, Issue 2, Posted 11:13 PM, 02.23.2020