Christopher Bell’s Guilt Led to Tony Stewart’s Only Safe Driver Bagging the Best Finish of the Season

Chase Briscoe is experiencing a thrilling emotional rollercoaster this weekend. After Tony Stewart revealed his plans to sell the Stewart-Haas Racing charters and shut down his beloved team, the driver of the #14 Mustang Darkhorse was left blindsided. Without a seat set in stone for 2024, the 29-year-old’s pace dropped off significantly.

From running in the front regularly to a string of mediocre results, Lady Lucky had turned against Briscoe halfway through the season. However, the Mitchell native had already secured a full-time seat with one of NASCAR’s greatest teams. While fans were in the dark earlier, all that would change when Christopher Bell unintentionally leaked Chase Briscoe’s future at Joe Gibbs Racing.

Although Bell didn’t mean to fast-track Briscoe’s announcement, it inevitably put a lot of pressure on the SHR driver in the media pen. Fast-forward to the Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, and Chase Briscoe had the perfect ‘payback’ in store for his soon-to-be teammate.

Chase Briscoe has nothing but praise for Christopher Bell

The Cup Series race at NHMS delivered a glimpse of every imaginable outcome. From dry weather battles to wet weather racing, NBC’s second race of the season was truly a remarkable spectacle. A big reason for that was the form shown by Tony Stewart’s SHR drivers, Josh Berry and Chase Briscoe, during the wet half of the race. Before the Rain Gods decided to join in, Briscoe was running outside the top ten for over 200 laps.

But as the track began to lose grip and rain came pouring down, Briscoe managed to slingshot past the field to run alongside race leader and future teammate Christopher Bell. With Berry following suit, the two SHR drivers gunned down Bell’s #20 JGR Camry to the very end. Although the JGR star was able to get away with the win, Chase Briscoe would have secured a playoff berth had the overtime caution lasted shorter.

That being said, Briscoe gave credit where it was due. He shared with FrontStretch, “I don’t think I could have got to him, even if I was in the lead, it would have probably been hard for me to hold him off, so he was just really really good all day long and the wet, the dry, it didn’t matter. So yeah for us to finish second, that’s a good solid day with you know, having three races with a 25th place car, we were not very good. “

Over the past few races, Briscoe either did not finish or was unable to crack the top 15. Perhaps now, with his future secure at JGR, the Mitchell native could focus better. But that’s not all. Chase Briscoe also revealed that a sense of poetic justice was delivered to Christopher Bell at NHMS for his earlier blunder.

The #14 SHR driver shared, “It was funny. I was laughing to myself kind of that even if we would have won that race, he would have been kicking himself for not lapping me early in the race when he could. So yeah, I appreciate it, I guess that was some payback on my end, he was trying to be nice to me so, appreciate them. It definitely helped our day.”

Despite joking that Christopher Bell was getting Karma handed to him for leaking Chase Briscoe’s future at JGR, the soon-to-be teammates couldn’t have asked for a better end to the weekend. That being said, this weekend at NHMS also changes this for SHR’s last season.

Will the #14 SHR squad make it into the playoffs?

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Before the NHMS weekend, Chase Briscoe’s playoff challenge was assumed by many to be over. Trailing the cutoff by nearly 60 points after Iowa, the #14 driver knew how important this weekend would be to make a recovery in the standings. Fast-forward to after the wet weather race, Chae Briscoe has climbed up to 19th in the standings, just three shy of a playoff berth.

Fortunately, this newfound momentum has instilled great confidence in the Mitchell native. He shared with FrontStretch, “You know when the rain came, we were 60 points below the cut line and now we’re 25 points below the cut line and we were bleeding points left and right. So we just needed a good day, you know, to get back and stop the bleeding was really really good, and hopefully, we can just continue to build on this.”

But at the same time, Briscoe also acknowledged that several variables led to a possible P2 finish at NHMS. He painted a realistic future about the #14’s remaining season, as he said, “We have a long way to go, this is not a real finish in my opinion in some ways, because we don’t normally race in the wet….so we have a lot of work to do and hopefully, this will at least kickstart us with some confidence and hopefully we can kind of some of that Mojo back that we had earlier.”

After looking at Chase Briscoe’s renewed fire to make it into the 2024 playoffs, do you think the soon-to-be JGR driver can also give back one last gift to Tony Stewart?