Stewart-Haas Racing Swaps Pit Crews for Berry, Briscoe at Kansas
Ahead of Sunday's Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway, which will serve as the opening race of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs Round of 12, Stewart-Haas Racing is making some changes to the pit crews of Chase Briscoe, who remains heavily in the fight for the championship, and Rookie of the Year contender Josh Berry.
Beginning with this weekend's race at the 1.5-mile oval, Briscoe's No. 14 Ford Mustang Dark Horse will be pitted by the pit crew that has serviced Josh Berry and the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 car this season. The pit crew that had been servicing Briscoe's car will now service Berry's car this weekend.
According to the NASCAR Team Roster Portal, Briscoe will have Front Changer Daniel Coffey, Rear Changer Daniel Smith, Tire Carrier Mason Flynt, Jackman Brandon Banks, and Fueler Evan Marchal cranking out pit stops for him this weekend.
Berry will have a pit crew comprising of Front Changer Shayne Pipala, Rear Changer Dakota Ratcliff, Tire Carrier Jon Bernal, Jackman Kapil Fletcher, and Fueler Corey Coppola.
Last weekend, at Bristol Motor Speedway Briscoe finished solidly in the eighth position, marking his ninth top-10 finish of the season. The finish was good enough to advance Briscoe to the Round of 12 of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. However, Briscoe had to rally from a miscue on pit road under caution at Lap 332, which dropped him to around 15th in the running order.
Prior to the issue on pit road, Briscoe had been running inside the top-five. The Mitchell, Indiana native would knife his way back inside the top-five by Lap 358, but would drop to eighth in the closing laps as he simply didn't want to force the issue with his advancement in the Playoffs all but secured with a top-10 finish.
With Berry outside of the Playoffs, it allowed Stewart-Haas Racing to swap its pit crews in an effort to give their team the best chance of advancing to the Round of 8 of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
Briscoe found himself outside of the Playoffs cutline heading into the final race of the NASCAR Cup Series regular season, the Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, but was able to break through for his first victory since the 2022 season, which secured his berth in the Playoffs.
In the Round of 16, things got started off on the wrong foot as Briscoe finished dead last at Atlanta following a crash with Kyle Larson, which was not of his doing. As a result, he found himself 20 points outside of the cutline heading into Watkins Glen, the second race of the Round of 16.
At Watkins Glen, Briscoe put in a great effort and finished sixth which, when coupled with poor finishes by some of his fellow Playoff contenders, was enough to work the driver of the No. 14 SHR car back inside of the Playoffs cutline with just Bristol Motor Speedway left in the Round. Despite the pit road miscue, Briscoe came home in eighth, and advanced to the Round of 12 by an 11-point margin over Ty Gibbs.
Following Kansas Speedway, the Round of 12 of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs will head to Talladega Superspeedway, and then the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL, where the Playoff field will be sliced from 12 contenders to just eight.
The NASCAR Cup Series Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway is set for Sunday, September 29, and will be televised on USA Network with streamable coverage being provided on the NBC Sports App. The televised coverage will begin at 3 PM ET. The Motor Racing Network (MRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide the live radio call of the race.
TOBY CHRISTIE
Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.