Jeff Gluck’s 12 Questions series has been delivering some gold lately. Last time, Joey Logano doubled down on his unchanged feelings about that wild 2013 Fontana run-in with Tony Stewart, and now, it’s Chase Briscoe’s turn in the hot seat. And he’s pulling back the curtain on something far more revealing: the real reason Joe Gibbs Racing thrives, even on their so-called “bad days.”

Inside JGR’s “good-but-not-great-enough” standard

Chase Briscoe’s first real shock at Joe Gibbs Racing came after the 2025 Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. Now, if you guys remember, it was a race where the team should have been thrilled. Denny Hamlin finished second, Ty Gibbs third, and Briscoe himself came home fourth, all representing JGR.

A strong day by any metric… just not by JGR’s standards.

Briscoe expected high-fives and an upbeat debrief. Instead, he walked into what felt like a postmortem on a disaster. As he put it:

“My eyes were opened a lot last year after the first Bristol race. I think we finished second, third, fifth, and sixth. I remember going to the debrief thinking, ‘Oh, this will be a good one.’ And instead, it was how we were terrible and how we’ve got to be way better than what we are. I’m just thinking, ‘Man, if at SHR we would have done this, this would have been the greatest comp meeting ever.’”

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That contrast (between respectable results and the intensity inside the room) is exactly what separates JGR. While Kyle Larson scored the win for Hendrick Motorsports that day, JGR wasn’t interested in celebrating “almost.” Their culture is built around chasing perfection, not participation trophies. Whether it’s execution, communication, pit strategy, or the smallest mechanical detail, the expectation inside that building is simple: winning is the baseline, not the goal.

For Briscoe, that day became a defining moment. What he once considered a “great day” now looked like a missed opportunity. And that mindset, uncomfortable as it can be, is the engine behind JGR’s ongoing success. In their world, second place isn’t relief. It’s motivation.

Chase Briscoe’s favorite debrief story

Chase Briscoe’s all-time favorite debrief moment didn’t come from a great finish or a breakthrough setup. Instead, it came from a burned-out bathroom light. And it all started with Kevin Harvick dropping one of the most brutally honest lines he’s ever delivered in a meeting at Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR):

“How can you expect us to even put cars on the racetrack when we can’t even change the effing light bulb in the bathroom?”

So, what’s the lightbulb thing? Well, at Stewart-Haas Racing, there was a giant pothole in the parking lot and a bathroom light that had been out for seven months. Briscoe says every week, someone would notice it, shake their head, and move on. But early in 2023, with the team running poorly and morale sinking, Harvick finally snapped.

During a debrief, he launched into a full 10–15 minute sermon connecting every on-track mistake, every loose bolt, every mechanical failure to those ignored “little things.” If the team couldn’t fix a light bulb or fill a pothole, he argued, how could they possibly expect to execute flawlessly on Sunday?

And he wasn’t wrong. SHR’s 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season was a difficult one: Harvick was on his retirement tour, Briscoe, Aric Almirola, and Ryan Preece all struggled for pace, and the organization faced sponsorship turbulence. The year ended winless and directionless. This was a stark contrast from their championship-contending past.

Harvick’s rant didn’t magically make the cars faster, but it did spark something. The bathroom light was replaced the next day, and the pothole was filled within a week. For Briscoe, the moment symbolized the heart of leadership: sometimes the smallest details reveal the biggest truths.