Dale Earnhardt Jr. sees Chase Briscoe as ‘dangerous’ coming on late in NASCAR regular season

Chase Briscoe has already earned a spot in this year’s NASCAR Cup Series playoffs with his win at Pocono, but his driving of late is causing some to take him as a more serious overall contender. Dale Earnhardt Jr., in particular.

Briscoe has finished in second place in each of the last two weeks, giving himself a great look at a second win on the season. He’s had eight top-five finishes already this year.

“Another driver that I think we’re all impressed with is Briscoe,” Earnhardt said on the Dale Jr. Download this week. “Another great result. He benefited from a lot of things that happened late in the race to be able to gain a little bit of track position, but he did have a great car running in the top five, top 10 throughout the day.”

Chase Briscoe had a shot late, only outmaneuvered by some excellent driving and a terrific late restart by Denny Hamlin. But Briscoe is driving at as high a level as anyone on the circuit right now.

“Since I guess around the 600 he’s been qualifying really good and he seems to have figured out how to take advantage of the tools that this 19 car has,” Earnhardt said. “And the other thing that I like about Briscoe is he always seems to come on late and especially in the playoffs. He overachieves.”

While the playoff field isn’t 100% set just yet — things could get weird if more than 16 drivers win — Chase Briscoe is doing well enough on points that he’s all but certainly in. That gives him a chance to do some damage late.

Earnhardt singled him out as one driver that can really change the complexion of the playoff race by who he might be able to upend. He explained.

“I’m not sure that anyone else is really ready to make this claim, but I’m feeling like Briscoe, to me, might be the… he’s pretty dangerous in terms of you used to have the Big Three, and there’s always going to be like these drivers as we get closer to the playoffs that we pinpoint as the guys that are the favorites,” Earnhardt said of Chase Briscoe. “This championship comes down to these couple of drivers. And we’re not always right. Joey Logano sneaks in and wins a championship, nobody thought that was going to happen.

“But if one guy, if a new guy pops into that equation it usually shoves somebody out, right? And I think Briscoe’s the kind of guy that can get in there and cause some headaches for some of the drivers that we feel like will be the contenders in this playoff system.”