Chase Briscoe eyes ARCA Series to reconnect with his “core fanbase”

NASCAR Cup Series driver Chase Briscoe said he wants to officiate the ARCA event at Salem Speedway, which was held earlier this year. When the entry list for the Kentuckiana Ford Dealers ARCA 200 appeared on the X, Briscoe commented expressing his desire to compete in the event.

Briscoe’s hometown of Mitchell is about a 30-minute drive from Salem Speedway, where he made two previous starts for Cunningham Motorsports, which closed at the end of the 2017 ARCA Racing Series season. In these two initiatives, the outstanding JGR team placed fifth and sixth.

However, Briscoe never tasted victory on the racetrack’s 0.555-mile paved oval. Ideally, the JGR star will race at both Salem and World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway in 2026, but first he’ll need to talk to the folks at Joe Gibbs Racing.

“I definitely want to do it,” Chase Briscoe told Frontstretch during an interview at Charlotte Motor Speedway last week. “Maybe I should talk to the JGR guys. I think (Steve) D’Souza runs the ARCA program. Actually, I kind of brought it up to him and told him, ‘Hey, I want to do this.’ So yeah, I’d love to do it.”

He added: “It won’t do anything for me, right? But I just want to go and race in front of my core fan base. … It will be great to race in front of a lot of my fans who can’t go anywhere else. Hopefully it works out.”

For now, Briscoe’s focus is on winning the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series championship. He is among the eight drivers who will compete for the honorary win next Sunday (October 12) at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The 267-lap event, called the South Point 400, will be broadcast on USA with radio updates on PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

Chase Briscoe battles illness during the final round of Round 12 at Charlotte Motor Speedway

Chase Briscoe took P15 last week at the famous Charlotte ROVAL. That was enough for him to reach the next eighth round. As of now, the driver is eighth in the qualifying standings, 14 points off the cutting line.

However, Briscoe’s day-long drive was not without obstacles as he became ill inside the cockpit of his No. 19 Toyota Camry XSE. Things got so bad that he had to ask his team for medication during the event. As Catchfence reported, the driver was feeling nauseous.

“Chase Briscoe is battling nasuea and has asked the team for some medication, if available,” Catchfence’s Chris Knight reported via a tweet on X, formerly known as Twitter.

It all happened at the end of the first stage. NBC Sports broadcaster Lee Davey announced that his team provided Briscoe with an ice pack to ease the situation. It is worth noting that he entered the race with a 21-point lead from the cutoff line.