CONCORD, N.C. — Chase Briscoe won the first of two big NASCAR races on the new roval at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Briscoe grabbed his first career Xfinity Series victory Saturday on the hybrid track of speedway and road course.
Briscoe beat Justin Marks, a part-time NASCAR racer who said this week this race is his last one dabbling in these cars.
Briscoe won in a Ford fielded by Stewart-Haas Racing in the lead-up to Sunday’s critical Cup playoff race.
Saturday was also a playoff race for NASCAR’s second-tier Xfinity Series, but these drivers were really the testers for the big show, the Cup race. Four drivers will be eliminated from the playoffs Sunday and that will be due in part to the difficulty of the roval, an odd layout causing headaches for the Cup drivers.
The Xfinity Series raced first and didn’t seem to have as many explosive accidents as the Cup stars did in practice.
Briscoe, who had not even sniffed a victory in his 13 previous races, said he treated the roval as if it were a dirt track. The Indiana native praised team co-owner Tony Stewart for both the opportunity and for being his role model in relying on their dirt backgrounds to attack a unique track.