SHR driver Kevin Harvick – now retired from full-time NASCAR Cup competition – won the last two 400-mile races on the IMS oval before the Cup series began using the IMS Road Course in 2021.
The return of the oval this year coincides with the final season of SHR, which was founded by co-owners Gene Haas and Indiana a native Tony Stewart, himself a two-time winner of the Brickyard 400 when he drove for Joe Gibbs Racing.
The duo announced in May the four-car Cup operation would close at season’s end, although Haas has since said he will field one Cup and two Xfinity teams next year.
Briscoe, also an Indiana native, took the reins of Stewart’s No. 14 Ford in 2021 so has never competed on the oval course in the Cup Series. He did, however, run the oval twice in the Xfinity Series and won that series’ race on the road course layout in 2020.
“Every race car driver, or anybody in motorsports, wants to race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and run laps at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but when you grow up in Indiana, it just means that much more to you,” said Briscoe.
“I’m just super excited to get back. I always say I don’t really care what we’re racing at Indy, whether it’s the road course, oval, dirt track, parking lot, whatever, I just want to race at Indy.
“It’s definitely more significant going to the oval, so it’ll be really special for me, personally, just to get to run a Brickyard 400. That was something I didn’t know that I was ever going to get the opportunity to do.”
When NASCAR first ran at IMS in 1994 it was the first race held at the speedway other than the Indianapolis 500 since 1916.
Many different motorsport series have called IMS home at times since and NASCAR itself moved to the oval course for three years when attendance waned at the 400.
While Briscoe, 29, has a solid future secured in the Cup Series with his recent signing with JGR, he appreciates one final opportunity to race Stewart’s former No. 14 on the track before SHR closes.
“I’m glad that I’ll at least get to say I got to drive one Brickyard 400 in the No. 14 for Tony. But it is bittersweet knowing that this’ll be the only time I’ll get to do it, and it’ll be the last time that Tony’s an owner at IMS,” he said.
“There are mixed emotions. I’m excited and glad that I’m getting to do it with how everything played out, the fact that we’re going back to the oval this year and everything, it means a lot personally to get to do it in the No. 14.
“I was talking to Tony a couple of weeks ago and even brought up to him how a reporter had mentioned it to me, and it didn’t even really hit me until I heard it. I think for Tony it was the same way. So, it’s going to be bittersweet for both of us.”
A final Brickyard 400 win for SHR?
Even better for both Briscoe and Stewart would be if Briscoe could pull out a win on Sunday and lock himself into the 2024 Cup playoffs, giving SHR its third consecutive win in the 400-mile event.
Not to mention the dreams of another aspiring Indiana race car driver coming true.
“Just to get to run on a race track that’s been around for more than 100 years and has the history and significance that it has in the motorsports community is always special. Then, when you grow up in Indiana, it’s just normal,” Briscoe said.
“I think you take for granted that you have IMS there in your backyard. It’s something you don’t realize how big of a thing it is until you finally go there and see it in person and realize what it means to motorsports.”
