“Went and Got IVs and Still Felt Like Crap”: Chase Briscoe Opens Up on His Most Pathetic Experience Inside the Race Car

Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series requires drivers to be mentally sharp and aware of their surroundings at all times and demands a lot from them physically. Chase Briscoe, racing for Joe Gibbs this season onwards and seen behind the wheel of a Toyota Camry XSE recently gave an example that put this into perspective.

Touching on how hot NASCAR racecars can become for drivers inside the cockpit while they engage in a high-adrenaline activity such as close-quarters superspeedway racing, Briscoe looked back at his Xfinity Series appearance at Chicagoland from 2018.

“It was like 115 degrees outside, and inside the car, it was around 145 degrees,” he explained during a recent interview with Jeff Gluck when the latter asked him about what his worst experiences in the car have been over his career.

“I ran the Xfinity race — the hottest I’ve ever been inside a race car. I was supposed to run the winged and non-winged sprint car race across the street at the dirt track afterward. I got out of the Xfinity car, went and got IVs, and still felt like crap. I didn’t even race the sprint car because I felt that bad,” he added, elaborating on the levels of heat fatigue and dehydration he went through that day.

While soaring temperatures inside the cockpits of racecars are nothing new, another time when Briscoe struggled while racing also came during the 2018 season. Looking back at a mistake he made at the time, the 30-year-old explained how his first Xfinity Series victory at the Charlotte Roval almost came undone.

“Right before the race, I was at the Ford trailer meeting with the executives. They had a buffet set up with chicken tenders, chips, salsa, queso. I had like nine chicken tenders dipped in queso. I don’t know what I was doing. I was just starving,” revealed Briscoe.

“It was a great idea — I wasn’t hungry anymore — until about 20 laps to go in the Roval, and then I was struggling. My stomach was so sick. I thought I was going to throw up,” he added.

While Briscoe did manage to keep himself together to cement his name as the first Xfinity Series driver to win at a brand-new facility at the time, things could have easily gone the other way.

Chicagoland was hard not only for Xfinity Series but Cup Series drivers as well that year

Kyle Larson detailed a similar experience to Chase Briscoe’s. The now NASCAR Cup Series champion raced at Chicagoland Speedway back in 2018 with Chip Ganassi Racing. Driving the #42 Chevrolet at the time, Larson won the Cup Series race at the venue.

However, victory celebrations did not come in the form of an all-encompassing burnout. “Water, ice, and towel at the start/finish line,” asked Larson over the radio, clearly struggling with heat inside his racecar.

“Yeah, it was pretty hot,” he added later, nonchalantly dismissing the herculean task he and several other racecar drivers achieve on a regular basis. Well, such are the perils of being a racecar driver at the topmost tier of stock car racing.