Oops! Chase Briscoe’s new home revealed

Christopher Bell immediately knew he was in trouble when he inadvertently revealed that Chase Briscoe would join Joe Gibbs Racing in 2025, without even a spoiler alert. He anticipated backlash for this premature disclosure.

Bell’s slip became the hot topic in NASCAR — except for Briscoe himself.

The speculation solidified when Bell was casually questioned about a potential leadership change at JGR following Martin Truex Jr.’s upcoming retirement.

“Whenever Chase comes into the car … ”

Bell then paused and smiled, immediately realizing he had just made a significant blunder. Indeed, Briscoe, in his final year with Stewart-Haas Racing, would take over the No. 19 Toyota at JGR next season.

As social media buzzed with jokes — Kyle Larson wished Chase Elliott the best in his “new job” — the revelation was slow to reach Briscoe, who was racing on a dirt track.

“Christopher texted me and was like, man I messed up so bad,” Briscoe recounted on Saturday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. “I was like, what happened? What do you mean? He says, go look at Twitter. I ran the sprint car race last night and had zero signal. Couldn’t get a single text to go in or out. Couldn’t receive any texts. So I couldn’t get anything to load. Literally the last text I got was just Christopher saying, I messed up, go look at Twitter.”

The suspense lasted for hours while 29-year-old Briscoe finished second in his race. Only after leaving the track did Briscoe see the video of Bell’s slip-up.

Briscoe, who has one career Cup win and has been with SHR for four seasons, anticipated an official announcement of his new position within the next week or two.

“Nothing’s official until it’s official,” Briscoe noted.

Stewart-Haas Racing, a two-time NASCAR championship team with 69 Cup Series wins since its 2009 inception, had announced last month that it would close its organization at the end of this season. SHR fields Cup cars for Briscoe, Josh Berry, Noah Gragson, and Ryan Preece, creating an uncertain future for these drivers. Briscoe is currently 17th in the points standings in the No. 14 Ford.

JGR also fields cars for Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs.

Briscoe held no grudges.

“I felt like everyone kind of knows what’s going on,” he said. “I wasn’t really mad. It was kind of funny, I thought.”

However, not everyone found humor in the mistake.

“Nobody let me live it down,” Bell admitted. “Everyone I see tells me how stupid I am. I tried to get away, get offline.”

Bell, who won the Xfinity Series race Saturday at New Hampshire, felt embarrassed by his error and tried to avoid social media most of Friday and Saturday. He reached out to Joe Gibbs and other race team officials to apologize for the premature announcement.

“The driver announcement is a really big deal and I completely fudged it up,” Bell confessed. “I’ve never in my life screwed up that bad and it was a huge, huge mistake. I’m very glad they took it easy on me.”