Last year, Chase Briscoe cracked the top four, the height of his NASCAR Cup career thus far. He elevated his on-track presence upon switching to Joe Gibbs Racing. Although he improved on road courses as well, his performance on the twisty stuff still fell short of his performance on ovals. Of 30 starts on road courses, Briscoe has finished just two inside the top five and nine within the top ten, carrying an average finish of 18.4.

Still, the No. 19 driver somehow relishes heading to such facilities. During a recent trip to Austin to promote the First Responders Appreciation Weekend at COTA, Briscoe opened up about the topic.

“I surprisingly love road courses. It’s something that even at the beginning of my career, I loved going to them. I was just four or five seconds off the pace, and I had no clue where to get faster. And then I went and did a lot of road course racing and just kind of started to understand what I needed to be doing different. And I love road course racing now. It’s one of my favorite things to do,” he stated.

While the Indiana native joked about feeling slightly less excited now that Shane van Gisbergen competes in the field because it proves a little harder to win, Briscoe does enjoy visiting road courses simply because, as a driver, he feels he can make a bit more of a difference.

Briscoe also confessed to enjoying the COTA racetrack overall, even though his average finish on the circuit stands at 15.6 across five starts. He has finished just one race inside the top ten there. Yet he loves the track in Austin, which also hosts F1 in America.

Briscoe’s sole complaint about COTA centers on how the track’s S-curves after the first hairpin are difficult to officiate in the series, and there exists considerable gray area, which presents one frustrating aspect: corner cutting.

Briscoe’s road course improvement in 2025 after moving to JGR.

Moving from SHR to JGR provided him with better machinery, which strengthened his performance across all track types, including road courses. Stewart-Haas Racing’s declining competitiveness in its final seasons hampered Briscoe’s development, masking his potential due to inadequate equipment and diminished technical support.

Last year, he showed improved, consistent speed on the tracks, with top-ten finishes in three of the six road-course races. His strongest performance among the road course contests came at Sonoma Raceway, where, after starting the race from second position, he finished in the same spot.

In Mexico City, Briscoe rolled off from 19th but accelerated to reach seventh by the time the checkered flag waved. Before 2025, Briscoe characterized his Cup road course performance as “hit-or-miss,” noting he would either run very well or be “just off.” Heading into 2026, that might be the case anymore.

The post Chase Briscoe Relishes Racing At Road Courses Despite Poor Record and Looming SVG Threat appeared first on The SportsRush.

NASCAR driver Christopher Bell knows what it feels like to be close.

Close to a Daytona 500 win, sustaining a dominant season and competing for a Cup Series crown, Bell enters 2026 chasing consistency — the difference between strong seasons and title-winning ones.

Bell’s 2025 run delivered mixed results. He posted a career-high four wins, 22 top-10 finishes (tied for most with champion Kyle Larson) and a series-leading average finish of 11.2. Yet Bell’s best season didn’t unfold as he’d hoped.

It started with heartbreak.

Bell’s best bid to win the Daytona 500 ended abruptly with a crash on Lap 195, ultimately leaving him 31st but oh-so-close, according to his calculations. Third-place finishes in 2023 and 2024 were more impressive on paper than on the asphalt of Daytona International Speedway, site of the 68th edition of the Great American Race on Feb. 15.

“I was in position to win,” Bell recalled. “I was in the front of the pack and unfortunately got wrecked out. But it’s a place that anybody can win at any time.

“We’ve seen that over the years.”

Rather than bemoan a close-call, Bell responded with three consecutive victories, establishing himself as the car to beat in Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 20.

Instead, the hot streak cooled.

Following a March 10 win at Phoenix, Bell went 24 races until he prevailed Sept. 13 at Bristol despite 11 top-10 finishes along the way.

“I’m proud of the 2025 season,” he said. “I just need to do a little bit better job of capitalizing on the opportunities that we have to win.”

Bell, 31, is widely regarded as one of NASCAR’s top young drivers.

Since a maiden victory on Daytona’s road course in 2021, a race created in 2020 as a temporary event in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Bell has added a dozen wins to sit at the head of the ballyhooed 2020 rookie crop. The class also featured Tyler Reddick, an eight-time winner, and Cole Custer, who has managed to reach Victory Lane just once.

But Bell is quick to credit his affiliation with Joe Gibbs Racing and its Hall of Fame owner.

“In this sport, you’re only as good as the race car you’re in,” Bell said.

A native of Norman, Okla., Bell sees parallels between his journey and that of his beloved Sooners. Oklahoma reached the 2025 College Football Playoff after several uneven seasons, only to suffer a crushing home loss after leading Alabama 17-0 in the opening round.

“It’s been rough a little bit for us, but we had a pretty good season this year,” Bell said. “It’s kind of like me. We have to build on it and try and get a little bit better.”

Timing could be everything for Bell.

NASCAR’s revamped postseason format did away with the elimination-style playoff system in place since 2014 and returned to a 10-race “Chase,” where the champion is determined by total points across the final stretch.

The top 16 drivers in the regular-season standings will qualify, with the highest point total after the Nov. 8 finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway crowned champion.

Steady, consistent and rarely out of contention, Bell is poised to capitalize.

Bell saw the old format undercut JGR teammate Denny Hamlin, who won six races in 2025 and dominated the season finale at Phoenix until a late caution undid his championship hopes.

“All of us thought that Denny did everything right to win the championship, and it just didn’t work out for him,” Bell said. “Hopefully we get on track to being able to reward the right guy for the championship.”

Bell wants that driver to be him, with the next chapter of a promising career written at the Daytona 500.

“Hopefully I get to continue writing my storybook here that I’ve got going on,” he said. “Hopefully I’m just getting started.”