Chase Briscoe feels like a brand new man after his Joe Gibbs Racing No. 19 team emerged victorious in their appeal against NASCAR over the spoiler brace infraction enacted following the Daytona 500 last month.
It was a rare example of a successful appeal and one that the first-year driver of the No. 19 team concedes is a game changer for their entire season moving forward. NASCAR issued a 100-championship point, 10 playoff point deduction which put him into the position of needing to win just to make the playoffs.
More so, he would need two wins just to get out of being a playoff points deficit if he made the Round of 16 come September. Now, he’s right back in a provisional playoff spot and no longer has to give up good points days in the pursuit of winning at all costs.
“It makes it to where, if your car is a fifth or sixth place car … it might be better to take a fifth of sixth place finish and maximize your points day,” Briscoe said. “If we didn’t get the points back, we have to win, no matter what.
“So it’s definitely different now. Even from a strategy standpoint, if it was a 100 points, we get way more aggressive on strategy calls and things like that. So it’s definitely different on how we approach the rest of the season.”
On one hand, Briscoe says he felt optimistic by the case laid out by crew chief James Small and company but he also knows how low percentage successful appeal cases are by teams.
“We’ve seen other people go out there and do it, but I’m first of all grateful to have an appeals process because there could be no appeal at all,” Briscoe said. “But at least we had the opportunity to go and present our case.
“When you see them get overturned, typically the evidence is there, and we brought 20 something plus spoilers and spoiler bases and they all things that were messed up with them. So when we presented that evidence, it was clear that the issue wasn’t something we did, it was just literally the assembly and the building process of the spoilers themselves.”
The spoilers are a single source supplied part that must be purchased from Roush Advanced Components.
“It was a surprise, I think, to all of us that it got completely thrown out just because you don’t normally see it but when you look at all the evidence, I went in there feeling like I didn’t know why we were in trouble,” Briscoe said. “When I was watching the evidence of both sides, I was like, how do we not win this?
“It’s just common sense. So I’m just glad we had the opportunity to make our case.”
Briscoe said the process started at 9:30 and ran until 2:30. He also joked with NASCAR officials afterwards that it should be live streamed because fans would find it really interesting.
Lastly, Briscoe also felt a little bit of validation afterwards too because he believes the decision reached by the National Motorsports Appeals Panel also restored legitimacy to their Daytona 500 pole effort.
“I saw all the social media, right,” Briscoe said. “Everyone was like, ‘Oh, that’s why they won the pole,’ and that had nothing to do with it at all. So yeah, I definitely feel like it legitimizes things a little bit more. I know internally that we were totally legit but it was the optics of it, and I think people look at it with less off a black eye now.”