Starting from the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season, Chase Briscoe will be driving for one of the greatest race teams in the sport’s history, Joe Gibbs Racing. This would have never come to pass had it not been for a chance encounter in 2019 which pretty much saved his career.
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The 29-year-old previously said that his career would be over had his father not been approached by Mike Mendiburu, founder and CEO of HighPoint. Well, things have certainly turned out for the better now.
At the time, Briscoe was an Xfinity Series driving the #98 Stewart-Haas Racing car. His father, Kevin, was walking to dinner after attending an SEMA event and Mendiburu noticed the #98 cap he was wearing. The HighPoint CEO was already a fan of Briscoe and upon knowing that he had just run into his father, gave him his business card after a good conversation. Neither of them knew if they’d ever meet again but as fate would have it, they did.
At the end of the 2019 season, Briscoe was in trouble. He did not have enough funding and was told that he might not have a seat for the following season if he did not find a sponsor. Therefore, his father took out Mendiburu’s business card and gave him a call and that call changed everything.
HighPoint was announced as the #98’s sponsor for the 2020 season. That season, the car visited Victory Lane a whopping nine times. It would never have happened without that chance encounter in Las Vegas.
Briscoe made it to the playoffs that year and midway through that season when he was called into the SHR shop. He had no idea why, perhaps it was to discuss if HighPoint would work with him the next year. But it later turned out to be something even better. The 29-year-old was informed here that he would be a full-time Cup Series driver and HighPoint was not going to leave his side.
Briscoe will be in a car from next season that is capable of winning the Cup Series championship and it would not have happened without HighPoint by his side. It truly is a heartwarming driver-sponsor partnership.
