Chase Briscoe to take over Martin Truex Jr. car at Joe Gibbs Racing in 2025
Chase Briscoe will have a new home with Joe Gibbs Racing next season as he inherits the No. 19 Toyota from Martin Truex Jr.
Truex, 43, announced he will retire from full-time NASCAR Cup Series competition at the end of this season after winning 15 races for Joe Gibbs over the last six seasons.
“I’m excited for this opportunity with Joe Gibbs Racing and Bass Pro Shops,” Briscoe said. “From a competition standpoint, JGR is the place to be if you want to go win races week in and week out and to race for the championship every year. I am blessed that Johnny Morris and Bass Pro are on board to help us carry on the legacy of the 19 car.
“For me personally, being an avid outdoorsman, there’s a lot of pride in now being a part of the Bass Pro brand and I’m extremely grateful for this partnership. Getting to meet Johnny, I feel like I share a lot of the same values as him and Coach, and I’m ready to get to work and prove that they have made a great choice putting me in this car.”
Chase Briscoe will drive for Joe Gibbs Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series beginning in 2025.
James Small, who took the reins of the team in 2020 after Cole Pearn’s departure, will continue as the team’s crew chief, while Bass Pro Shops will continue as a team sponsor.
“We have been honored to stand beside Martin Truex Jr. for the last 21 years and together with our friends at Joe Gibbs Racing over the last six years,” said Johnny Morris, said founder of Bass Pro Shops. “We are proud to represent sportsmen and women across North America as we extend this relationship with Joe Gibbs Racing, Toyota and Chase Briscoe.”
Briscoe lands on his feet a month after Stewart-Haas Racing, who he currently drives for, announced it will shut down at season’s end. The 2025 season will be Briscoe’s fifth in the NASCAR Cup Series, and Gibbs will be the second team he’s driven for at the sport’s top level. He has one win and one playoff appearance in 126 career starts.
Briscoe, who turns 30 years old before the 2025 NASCAR season, has signed a multiyear deal with Joe Gibbs Racing.
“We are extremely excited about the future of our 19 team with Chase behind the wheel and the partnership with Johnny, J.P. and everyone at Bass Pro Shops,” said Joe Gibbs, owner of Joe Gibbs Racing. “I talk about it often, but one of the great things about our sport is the relationships you have the opportunity to build around your teams and certainly we are just so thankful to have that with everyone at Bass Pro Shops.
“We obviously do a lot of research before selecting our drivers and through the process everything kept pointing us back to Chase. With James’ (Small) leadership, Chase behind the wheel, and the support from Bass Pro, and of course Toyota, we couldn’t be more excited about the future of our 19 team.”
The move to Gibbs will put Briscoe behind the wheel of something other than a Ford for the first time in his NASCAR national series career. The Indiana native made his debut at 22 years old for Brad Keselowski in the Craftsman Truck Series. It was his only full year in the series as Briscoe began competing in the Xfinity Series a year later – on a part-time schedule – before going full-time in 2019.
Briscoe won 10 races through the 2019-20 seasons and finished inside the top five in the championship points in both seasons. The performance made him Tony Stewart’s handpicked replacement beginning in 2021.
Chase Briscoe to join Joe Gibbs Racing for 2025 NASCAR Cup season
Clark, Reese on same team at WNBA All-Star weekend and in spotlight in matchup against Olympic team
Clark, Reese on same team at WNBA All-Star weekend and in spotlight in matchup against Olympic team
The Associated Press
PHOENIX (AP) — Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese will once again step into the spotlight during All-Star Weekend with their matchup against the U.S. Olympic team.
They’ll get to team-up for the first time on the WNBA All-Star team after being rivals in college. Reese’s LSU squad topped Clark’s Iowa team for the national championship in 2023. The Hawkeyes knocked out the Tigers this past year in the Elite Eight.
While there has been so much hype on the pair entering the WNBA, the duo has shown they can compete with the best players in the league. That’s helped show that this isn’t just a moment for the WNBA, but a larger movement for the sport.
Clark was quick to deflect that the movement is more for all of women’s sports than just basketball.
“I definitely think it’s much more than women’s basketball. I think you look across the board at all women’s sports, and people are really invested in it and show up for it,” she said. “Obviously, women’s basketball has kind of been at the forefront of all of it. And for good reason, as it should across the board, whether it’s college women’s basketball or the WNBA. The talent level has been really good.”
While both Clark and Reese have both been challenged through physical play on the court and and a lot of outside noise off the court through their rookie season, they’ve flourished.
“I told Angel at the draft that I’m not trying to put anything heavy on her, but this league depends on you playing, you know well. And she understood, she understood that things weren’t going to be handed to her,” WNBA union president Nneka Ogwumike said. “I think that’s why she’s doing well. I think there were a lot of naysayers and I think there was a lot of debris coming Caitlin’s way and they’ve handled it well.”
The pair have helped the league to record ratings and attendance through the first part of the season, building on what they both achieved in college. Clark finished as the NCAA’s Division I scoring leader all-time and Clark won an NCAA championship at LSU.
The pair’s success so far in their rookie season in the WNBA potentially helped increase the value of the WNBA for it’s new media right’s deal that is worth a reported $2.2 billion over 11 years.
“They are handling it the best that they can and it’s always good that they can back it up,” said Aces’ star A’ja Wilson. “To actually be good at what they do is important because it wouldn’t be good if they weren’t and no one wants to see you play.”
Reese is currently leading the league in rebounding and Clark is tops in assists. She just broke the league’s single-game assist mark with 19 against Dallas in Indiana’s last game before the Olympic break. Reese broke the WNBA record for consecutive double-doubles in a season already.
“I never would have dreamed that I would have been playing in the All-Star Game as a rookie,” Reese said.
The Sky’s star rookie hit the halfcourt shot at the end of practice.
Brittney Griner was part of the last group of college players that had major hype around them back in 2013 with Elena Delle Donne and Skylar Diggins-Smith. The trio have had stellar WNBA careers, but didn’t move the needle the same way that Clark, Reese and the rest of this rookie class have so far.
“We saw what they could do and why wouldn’t it translate over?” Griner said. “They put in all the hard work and they do everything. They’re not just running on media they, they actually play hard too. I’m just happy that there’s validation for all those people that had doubts.”
