CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The 2024 season has not progressed as anyone at Stewart-Haas Racing hoped, but the organization's playoff driver has plans on delivering a mic drop moment at the end of the season.
"I can't think of a better way to end the story that Stewart-Haas Racing has written," Chase Briscoe said during Playoff Media Day on Wednesday.
"To go from being one of the most dominant teams in the sport to -- no lie, it has been a struggle the last couple of years -- to the last race of the year going out on top. It'd be pretty cool."
Not many people expected Briscoe -- or any of the Stewart-Haas Racing drivers -- to make the playoffs after May 28. This was the day that Tony Stewart and Gene Haas announced that the organization would shut its doors after the 2024 season.
Haas has since unveiled plans to move forward with a single Cup car controlled by Cole Custer and two Xfinity cars controlled by Sheldon Creed and Sam Mayer.
People throughout the organization reacted to the news of Stewart-Haas Racing's impending end in different ways. Some have since moved on to other opportunities.
The members of the No. 14 team responded to the news by holding an impromptu meeting.
"(We) went over, met up at the setup plate and said -- we all literally looked each other in the eye and went one by one in the circle and said, 'I'm in, I'm in, I'm in 'til the end of the year.'
"Even if we ran 35th, we were sticking it out to the end."
The group stuck together despite facing an uncertain future and now their reward is the opportunity to compete for the Cup Series championship.
Of course, it's not just the No. 14 team that is embracing this playoff appearance. The entire organization is rallying around Briscoe, who said that SHR would have been the "darkest, gloomiest shop in the industry" if all four drivers had failed to make the playoffs.
Now that one of them has punched their ticket, the situation has completely changed.
"We're probably the most electric, fired-up shop," Briscoe said. "At least the most fired up I've ever seen Stewart-Haas. Everybody's got a pep in their step. Everybody's excited.
"And if a Stewart-Haas car didn't win Sunday night, then it would have been hard, realistically, to probably get cars to the race track these final 10 weeks, and things would have been probably getting shut off."
SHR only has one car in the playoffs while Team Penske has three. Four when you consider the Wood Brothers Racing alliance. Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing each have four cars in the playoffs.
Some could consider having one entry competing for the championship a disadvantage. Not Briscoe. He sees considerable opportunity ahead of him.
While other organizations will have their teams competing for points and spots in each round of the playoffs, Briscoe will have all of SHR working with him to make the No. 14 team more competitive.
For example, the No. 10 team will have identical setups so that Noah Gragson can test things out during practice and provide additional feedback.
Briscoe will enter the playoffs as an underdog -- a title he proudly wears -- with the full backing of Stewart-Haas Racing. Navigating multiple rounds fraught with danger will not be a simple task, but Briscoe believes he can make a Tony Stewart-esque run to close out Stewart-Haas Racing's tenure with a championship.
After all, he has momentum after winning one of the hardest races in NASCAR.
"Momentum is a crazy thing in sports," Briscoe said. "And I kind of relate it to NC State this past year in the NCAA basketball tournament. They go from not even having a prayer to make the NCAA tournament to winning the ACC tournament and going all the way to the Final Four.
"And I feel like we certainly could relate to that where when you've got momentum and confidence, it just goes such a long way."