After his YellaWood 500 win at Talladega Superspeedway last week and qualifying for the Championship 4 race, Chase Briscoe floated the idea of seeing all three Joe Gibbs Racing drivers in the Championship 4, insisting he has no qualms about squaring off against his own teammates.
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With Denny Hamlin already locked in after his Las Vegas win to open the Round of 8, and Christopher Bell leading the points among the remaining contenders, Briscoe stated that he welcomes an all-JGR show at Phoenix.
Speaking on this week’s Rubbin’ is Racing with Spider and Large, Briscoe said, “Hopefully we can get Christopher in there as well. (It’d) Be pretty cool if we could have three out of the four. And honestly, I hope it is that way because as a competitor, I think naturally you have to think you’re the best one. And whenever we go to the championship four race and I’m racing three of my teammates, well, I know that we all have the exact same equipment.”
“It’s just going to come down to out of us three, who can perform the best? And if you go there with three other teams or three other organizations, there’s just a ton of question marks about do they have better stuff, better resources, whatever. But when we’re racing just JGR cars, I know they have the exact same opportunity that I have, and it just comes down to who can do it the best,” he added.
When asked which driver he’d prefer as the fourth finalist if all three JGR cars advance, Briscoe didn’t play favorites. He noted that every contender at this stage has a championship pedigree, and none would be an easy mark.
Still, he admitted, “I’d be lying if I said I hope a Penske car doesn’t get in…If you look at the statistics, the last three years, they’ve been unbelievable there.”
Briscoe added that whether it’s a Hendrick or a Penske entry, the battle at Phoenix will be a tall order. No one gets to this point in the season without being one of those elite guys, he said.
Hence, to him, it doesn’t matter who the fourth guy is; they’ll all be tough to beat. Even his own teammates are going to be hard to beat. He will carry the mindset that they are going there to win, so his job is just to outrun the other three.
