'That’s His Natural Demeanor': Chase Briscoe Gets Candid on Working With Straight-Talking Crew Chief James Small

One of the first things Chase Briscoe learned when he joined Joe Gibbs Racing prior to this season is that his new crew chief, James Small, is a straight shooter.

Small, who previously was crew chief for the now-retired Martin Truex Jr., who Briscoe replaced at JGR, is a no-nonsense kind of guy. He says what he means and means what he says, to borrow an old, hackneyed phrase.

But Small and his attitude were just the thing Briscoe was seeking after leaving the now-defunct Stewart-Haas Racing. That’s not a knock at Briscoe’s crew chief at SHR, James Boswell, but Small just has a knack that immediately clicked with Briscoe. And the proof is in the results.

Briscoe enters this season’s NASCAR Cup playoffs having enjoyed the best season he’s ever had in Cup racing: one win, 10 top-fives and 12 top-10 finishes, as well as a career-best six poles.

And there’s still 10 more races to add to those stats, with Briscoe’s and Small’s collective hoped-for end result of winning the championship. That means beating guys like his JGR teammates Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell, as well as others like William Byron, Kyle Larson, and Shane van Gisbergen.

While Briscoe will be doing the driving, Small will be doing the strategizing atop the pit box. It’s been a great marriage, with potentially even greater things to come over the next 10 races.

When asked what some of the more unique words the Melbourne, Australia-born Small has taught him thus far this season, Briscoe laughed and demurred with his answer.

“I can’t say them on air, I’ll get in trouble. James’ vocabulary is definitely unique. I guess it’s just the Australian lingo,” Briscoe quipped during this past week’s NASCAR Cup playoff media day.

“Some words that they say all the time there that we don’t say here, which I’ve definitely heard a lot. My favorite was actually last week, he came over the radio and we had like these code words.

“We had one for A through like E or F or something like that. And he was saying D and I couldn’t understand what he was saying. He’s like D for (expletive) and I was like, ‘Okay. All right. Got it.’”

Briscoe is much different than Martin Truex Jr.

While Truex was more aggressive and impulsive behind the wheel and on the radio, Briscoe believes he is a change of pace for Small.

Briscoe said, “Honestly, for James, I think it’s probably a nice change for him to have somebody that’s very, just easygoing and nonchalant all the time. Because Martin (Truex Jr.) I think would go back and forth. We heard it all the time.

“For James, that’s just how he talks. It’s not like he’s coming off to be rude or anything. That’s just his natural demeanor and how he talks. And yeah, it definitely can get taken out of context a lot of the time.

“There’s been times where I want to say something back. Like I’ll ask all the time, ‘Hey, what’s our teammates got going on?’ And he’s like, ‘Don’t worry about our teammates.’ I just like knowing that stuff. But I just don’t say nothing back ’cause there’s no point arguing back and forth.”