I had my eyes on Chase Briscoe this weekend in Phoenix. The Stewart-Haas Racing driver sat 32nd in points coming into Sunday’s United Rentals Work United 500. That’s because of finishes of 35th, 20th and 28th respectively in the first three weeks of the season.

However, Phoenix was the spot that was going to tell the story on if they could rebound. Last year, Briscoe won this very race after leading 101 laps. Last Fall, he led 11 more laps and finished fourth. If there was any place to where Briscoe was going to thrive, it’s here.

Unfortunately though, he only qualified 24th. The Indiana native had some work to do on Sunday’s 317 lap race. Luckily, they’d do just that.

Briscoe had his No. 14 Ford in 10th at the end of the second stage and was seventh in the end for his first top 10 finish of the 2023 season.

“I think we overall had a pretty strong and solid day,” he said. “Starting that far back in the pack, it just takes forever to get up there. I thought my car was good enough – if you would have put it in the lead, I would have been fine staying there. But it was just a matter of getting up there.

“It takes a long time. It’s like every green flag run you pick up three or four, every pitstop you maybe get one and the restart you get one. It just takes forever to get up there when you start 24th. I thought we ran it pretty good as a complete race.

On that second-to-last restart, I think we could have done a better job and been in a little bit better position. Overall, we really needed that type of run. We were fast all day, and not scratching our heads. Hopefully we can build on this and get that going.”

Next up is Atlanta then COTA to which Briscoe can start making strides to making himself a championship contender again.