Chase Briscoe has two more opportunities to race into the Round of 8. He will use one of them to bring back a classic Tony Stewart scheme.
According to a press release, Briscoe will run a throwback Rush Truck Centers scheme featuring the yellow, red, and black scheme. This design draws inspiration from the 2013 season, Rush Truck Centers' first as a primary sponsor of the Hall of Fame driver.
The timing of the throwback scheme coincides with Stewart-Haas Racing and Rush Truck Centers celebrating 15 seasons together. The partnership has included schemes on multiple cars. It also has included the Cup Series team using tractor-trailers from Rush Truck Centers to get to the race track each week.
What a rush it's been.
As a long-standing partner of SHR, @rushtruckcenter will look familiar with @ChaseBriscoe_14 in an iconic @TonyStewart throwback at Talladega. pic.twitter.com/DlpNbGRaHO
— Stewart-Haas Racing (@StewartHaasRcng) September 30, 2024
Obviously, there are some noticeable differences between the classic and modern scheme considering that Bass Pro Shops is not among Briscoe's sponsors. The door number location change in the Next Gen era also makes the scheme close but not exact.
The 2013 season featured Stewart competing in 21 of the 36 Cup Series races. A sprint car crash at Southern Iowa Speedway in August 2013 resulted in him missing the final 15 races of the season as he recovered from two broken bones in his right leg.
The Hall of Famer posted eight top-10 finishes and five top-fives in his 21 starts that season. He also won the race at Dover Motor Speedway.
Fast-forward to 2024 and Briscoe is nearing the end of his final season in the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford. He has a spot in the playoffs, which he secured by winning the regular-season finale at Darlington Raceway. He then raced his way through the Round of 16 after starting below the cutline.
After one race of the Round of 12, Briscoe is under the cutline. He faces a 25-point deficit after finishing 24th at Kansas Speedway. He is ahead of Austin Cindric, who is 29 points below the cutline.
Next up is Talladega, the biggest track on the schedule. Briscoe has made seven Cup Series starts at the 2.66-mile superspeedway, and he has finished inside the top 15 six times. His best finish was fourth in last season's spring race. His worst was 37th in the 2022 spring race.
"There's nothing I really do there that I feel is special," Briscoe said about his consistency at Talladega. "It's just one of those things where luck's on your side or the man upstairs is looking out for you. We've been just fortunate to miss the wrecks there and have good days.
"Hopefully, we can just have one of those solid days. Obviously, we're going there to win the race, but Talladega is one of those places where if you can just come out of it with a top-15, you're almost happy just because you didn't bleed a ton of points."