Chase Briscoe gave the look of utter bewilderment — hands on his hips, a cold stare into the pleasant night air — right after being relegated to the B-main of a midweek May midget race at Millbridge Speedway in Salisbury, N.C.

The 27-year-old’s dad, Kevin, then placed a hand on his son’s shoulder in an attempt to lead his lost driver out of the proverbial weeds.

“Dude, you’re overthinking it,” he said while locking eyes with his son. “Just don’t overthink it.”

The Mitchell, Ind., native is living out his childhood dream in all its fullness this year as a legitimate NASCAR Cup Series title contender driving for Hoosier State hero, Tony Stewart, while moonlighting in a return to his first love, dirt-track racing.

One undertaking has naturally evolved. The other is pleasantly familiar, yet, on the same hand, so foreign.

“I feel like, now, with how little I dirt race, every time I come back, I just don’t react,” Briscoe said. “Like, I overthink everything and try to do too much instead of doing what comes natural. Yeah, I definitely think some of that’s true. It’s hard, you know?

“You come here, get two hot laps, then qualify that determines your whole night. I don’t know. I feel like every dirt race I’ve ran this year, with the exception of one, I’ve overthought the whole night.”

On Thursday, Briscoe will be one of three accomplished drivers from outside disciplines crossing into the Dirt Late Model world with the central hope to at least race their way into the coveted Eldora Million at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio.

Ten-time World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series champion Donny Schatz and reigning Kings Royal champion Tyler Courtney are the remaining expected outsiders entered in this week’s Million hoping to not think too hard about their circumstances, much like Briscoe the one May night at Millbridge.

Midget cars are, by no stretch of the imagination, comparable to Late Models or the mountainous task to make the Eldora Million show itself this week. But Kevin Briscoe’s short, punchy guidance to his well-known son carries weight that race cars are race cars, and behind every successful driver is a clear conscience.

That innocence instills enough belief in Courtney — an Eldora winner in winged sprint cars, wingless sprint cars, midget cars and Silver Crown cars — that even a guy like him with a single Late Model start has a shot to win $1 million.

“The same way I ran it there is kind of the same way I run everything else there,” Courtney said of his ninth-place finish in his Late Model debut at Eldora. “I think they all kind of correlate. They are race cars, even though they’re different. They are race cars on the same racetrack. You kind of do things the same way. I know it’s going to be a lot different once it gets slick, just the way those cars handle, how you have to race them once it gets slick. Hopefully I can keep adapting quickly and not get caught with my pants down and be in the back.

“It being at Eldora is why I wanted to do it. I do know that place. I love that place. I feel like if I can get up front, I can be competitive. It’s just going to be a matter of getting comfortable right away and put myself in the right spots.

“It’s the only dirt race paying a million dollars to win this year, so as a guy racing for a living, you have to give yourself a chance to win it, you know?”

Schatz has raced Late Models for some time now, last winning in the full-bodied machines August 2019. But for Briscoe and Courtney, these are mostly uncharted waters.

Growing up in Indiana, most of Briscoe’s races were in open-wheel cars. His first Late Model race came April 27 at his home-state Brownstown Speedway in a Kent Robinson Racing entry, a night that ended in a heat race crash. The second and third races occurred at The Dirt Track at Charlotte on May 12 and 13, where he, too, failed to make a feature event, but, on the brighter side, kept the car in one piece.

Briscoe added that racing side-by-side in the B-main at Charlotte on May 12 “was honestly the most fun I’ve had in a dirt car my entire career.”

Then on Friday in Robinson’s car, Briscoe barely missed his first feature start in a Late Model last Friday at Tri-City Speedway in Granite City, Ill., finishing fourth in a B-main that transferred three to the World of Outlaws Case Late Model Series main event.

“I feel like every time I’ve hit the racetrack I’ve gotten better, it’s just the results haven’t shown it,” said Briscoe, who plans to field a Billy Franklin-owned car at Eldora. “They’re just really hard cars to kind of figure out; just how weird they are to drive compared to what we’re used to from a background standpoint driving sprint cars. I haven’t done myself any favors. I just show up to the racetrack and run my two hot laps and go qualifying. It really determines your whole night. I’ve had a lot of fun. I’d love to do a lot more of it.

“Even how you sit, you’re going around the racetrack, and I feel like I’m going to get thrown out the right side. In a sprint car or midget, if you’re ever sitting like that, you’re about to flip, like really, really big. That part is hard to get used to. The size of the car, now that I’ve ran stock car stuff, feels really normal. I still don’t know where my right rear is at time.

“I’ve had a blast. It’s just running laps, like to know when I’m up on the bars and how I need to keep it there. The heat races at Charlotte, or even the B-main, I feel by laps six or seven, I’m really fast, but you have two laps left in the race and you kind of buried yourself. I just have to do better with that kind of stuff. The biggest thing is, like at Charlotte, I couldn’t believe the aero side and how much it changed throughout the race; clean air and dirty air. I didn’t do a good job of understanding that. I didn’t do myself a favor at the start of the races.

“I’ve had a blast, but I have a lot … a lot … a lot to do to get better.”

Interestingly enough, Briscoe has never raced anything other than NASCAR Camping World Trucks at Eldora. His sprint car engine wasn’t built for a big, power-demanding oval like Eldora in his formative years on dirt, so he and his family team never had the chance to run at the historic Earl Baltes-founded track.

In three NASCAR Truck starts, Briscoe has a 2018 victory to go along with third- and seventh-place finishes.

“I’m going to feel like I’m flying, probably,” Briscoe said through a laugh, alluding to the slowness of sub-100 mph laps by the Trucks in comparison to Late Models at Eldora. “(The Late Model) has way more grip than you’d expect, even in the slick. … I don’t really realize how hard I can drive these cars. That’s been a challenge. Even how you enter the corner, a lot of the times — like at Brownstown — if you don’t get on the brakes, like if you didn’t get it unloaded and then back to it, it just didn’t want to turn. That’s the complete opposite of everything I’ve ever ran growing up. It’s always, drive it in harder, on the gas, back it in, and you don’t really do that in the Late Model as much.” 

Briscoe and Courtney both expanded upon, in separate conversations, the gravitational influence of the Castrol FloRacing Night in America midweek series that’s allowed race fans to taste and see Late Model racing for the very first time and for drivers from other disciplines to perhaps do the same.

“I think we’re able (other drivers) to be immersed in the Late Model world; get to know guys,” said Courtney, who will drive a Longhorn Chassis owned by NASCAR crew chief Jeremy Bullins. “Paying a lot more attention to it definitely gives you a spark to go try and do it. I always thought Late Models were cool and stuff growing up, but we don’t have Late Models in Indiana. It was never really a thought to even drive one. Luckily now I’m in a spot I can drive one. It’s a good car. Now it’s time to try and win a million bucks.”

VIDEO: Tyler Courtney is seeking another crown jewel win at Eldora during the Eldora Million.

Marquee, midweek Late Model events has also influenced Briscoe’s primary Cup Series partner, Mahindra Tractors, to support his dirt racing endeavors, too.

“Now, with how big the publicity is, it made it easier to go to Mahindra Tractors and ask, ‘Hey, are you interested in doing this deal?’ ” Briscoe said. “When you go and tell them that a lot of people watch it week in and week out, it definitely made it a lot easier to make it all work.

“Wednesday night, there’s not a lot of stuff to do, so you get on there and watch Late Models. I know, for me, if there was a race on a weekend, I was going to watch sprint cars and midget racing. But now, with the Late Models on Wednesday night, I became a fan. I started watching it. I definitely feel like (Kyle) Larson going and doing it has definitely opened up the eyes of a lot of people to go out and try it, drivers and fans.”

Courtney, furthermore, believes drivers like Larson and himself are proverbial bridges between the sprint car and Late Model communities.

“I think we all have a respect for each other, all being race car drivers, with how hard each discipline is,” Courtney said. “It’s been pretty seamless. We’re all race car drivers, whether it’s a Late Model or a sprint car, right? I think we both think what we do is pretty damn cool. And the fans have been really receptive to it as well. They’re just as dedicated as sprint car fans.

“Hopefully we can keep crossing over to get Late Model fans to be sprint car fans, and sprint car fans to be Late Model fans. How about lets just be race car fans. It’s cool to kind of be in the middle of that and experience both sides.”

Larson can’t race the Million nor Dream events this week, as he’s the best man in friend Colby Copeland’s wedding, a life event that’d take extreme measures for the NASCAR Cup Series champion to miss.

“Definitely, for sure,” Larson said when affirming the point that important life events trump even the biggest races. “He was there for my wedding. I’ll be there for his.”

If there’s anything that Courtney could share with Larson when crossing over from sprint cars to Late Models, it’s that he’s deliberately chosen Eldora for his Late Model debut in a way that resembles Larson handpicking Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway for his Late Model debut in 2020.

Larson’s first victory came in his second Late Model race August 2020 at the Port Royal half-mile that brings out the best of his talents. This week happens to mark the second and third Late Model events for Courtney at a racetrack he’s so very fond of.

“I don’t think going out there and trying to win like Kyle is a realistic goal, but I think going out there and being respectable — race to my abilities — we should be good,” Courtney said. “I think Kyle’s kind of a different equation, a different breed I guess, if you’d say.

“Still kind of the same goal going into it: I just want to be able to make the show both nights; especially the first night to get more laps, and hopefully we can get comfortable enough to go for a chance to win a million dollars. But you have to make the show first to give yourself a chance. I’m just excited to be a part of it, man.”

The same can be said for Briscoe, who won’t allow the stressors of learning a new craft to consume him like the midget race at Millbridge, even with $1 million on the line. 

“I just want to be a part of it,” Briscoe said. “I think it’s a cool thing. I mean, how many races in the world pay a million dollars? No less a dirt race. Just to go there and say you’re part of the event. I just wanted to be part of it.”