Briscoe gets his first Xfinity Series victory

CONCORD, N.C. – Chase Briscoe is climbing his way through Ford Racing’s development system by racing any kind of car on any kind of track.

That exposure gave the Indiana native the wherewithal to attack the new “roval” at Charlotte Motor Speedway as if it was America’s favorite dirt track, the one owned by hero Tony Stewart.

Briscoe treated the roval, a hybrid of Charlotte’s speedway and an infield road course, as if it was Ohio dirt track Eldora Speedway.

Stewart’s track hosts sprint cars and NASCAR’s Truck Series, and Briscoe won there this summer for one of the few positive races in a season he’s found to be a struggle.

Briscoe snapped that streak Saturday with his first career Xfinity Series victory, in the first race of the weekend on the roval.

It was a breakthrough moment because Briscoe had not even sniffed a victory in his 13 previous races.

“I feel like my career was getting really bad this year, and I needed to get my stock back up,” Briscoe said. “We’ve wrecked a lot of race cars and I think my best finish was ninth, so I was really down on myself personally.”

Briscoe was thrilled to get the win on such a challenging new track that he treated like it was Eldora.

“Winning really two of the most different races we have all year between Eldora and the roval, honestly, they had a lot of similarities because we didn’t have very much grip,” Briscoe said.

“It’s huge to me. Everybody had to adapt to it and figure it out, and I don’t know that I’m necessarily the best at it, but I felt like I just tried not to hit anything, and this thing hardly has a scratch on it.”