Chase Briscoe has spent years chasing adrenaline at nearly 200 miles per hour. Apparently, that still isn’t enough.
The NASCAR driver says deer hunting now gives him a rush that rivals — and may even surpass — anything he feels behind the wheel.
“It’s the closest thing I’ve ever been able to come to racing, and honestly, I feel like it’s surpassed racing,” Briscoe told OutKick OutDoors.
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That might sound like a bold statement coming from a NASCAR driver, but Briscoe says the explanation is actually pretty simple: racing has become normal.
“You know, the racing deal, I do it so often,” he said. “We race 38 weekends a year that, truthfully, the adrenaline kind of goes away because you do it all the time.
“Getting to go hunting and getting to feel that adrenaline is like this drug that I can’t get rid of.”
Briscoe, who drives the No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota, didn’t grow up as a diehard hunter. His love of the outdoors started instead around his grandfather’s pond back home in Indiana.
“Ever since I was a little kid, I remember we would go over there every Sunday and would just spend time outside, out by the pond fishing,” he said.
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As he got older, fishing became a regular part of life with his friends.
“Especially in my high school years, that was all me and my buddies would do,” Briscoe said. “We would go find other little farm ponds or go to creeks or wherever and just go fishing.”
Hunting came later.
After moving to North Carolina, Briscoe and his family bought roughly 30 acres that happened to be loaded with deer. A few years ago, he finally decided to give hunting a try.
He was hooked almost immediately.
“I went for the first time and just fell in love with it,” he said.
Part of the appeal is the rush. But part of it is the exact opposite.
Briscoe and his wife, Marissa, have three children, and the NASCAR calendar doesn’t exactly leave much room for peace and quiet.
“For me, it’s been just an amazing getaway,” he said. “Just to kind of be able to get out in the outdoors and start my morning and just watch the sun come up, or just go out there and be by myself.”
He added: “We have three kids, and then obviously the chaos of just my career. You don’t get a lot of time just to yourself.”
These days, though, Briscoe doesn’t always hunt alone.
His four-year-old son Brooks has caught the bug, too — perhaps even worse than his dad.
“Brooks is ate up with it,” Briscoe said.
North Carolina’s deer season had just begun when Briscoe spoke with OutKick OutDoors, and the two had already been discussing their plans.
“Last night we were talking about it,” Briscoe said. “I said, ‘Hey, tomorrow deer season starts. I won’t be home, but Monday maybe you can go with me.’ And he was jumping up and down.”
Then Briscoe remembered another conversation from about a month and a half earlier.
“We were just driving down the road, and he said, ‘Hey Dad, I want to talk to you about something,’” Briscoe recalled. “I was like, ‘Okay.’ He’s only 4, and he said, ‘I think this year I’m just gonna just shoot bucks this year. No more does.’”
Briscoe laughed.
“I’m like, ‘Okay, buddy. That sounds like a plan.’”
Brooks has reason to be confident.
The very first time he ever went hunting with his dad, he got a buck.
“It was a total, like, one of those Hollywood stories, I guess,” Briscoe said. “Literally the first time he ever went out there with me, he got a buck.
“Not that it was — I mean, it was a tiny little four-pointer — but for him, it was his first experience going out there, and he got to do it.”
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Brooks helped his dad sight in the rifle and pull the trigger. The following season, Briscoe said his son took another step.
“Last year, he got a doe on his own,” he said. “Like, actually lined it up. I mean, I helped him, obviously — he’s 4 — but he got it right on the crosshairs and pulled the trigger.”
For comparison, Briscoe said it took him about a year and a half to get his first buck.
“He definitely was beating me already.”
But for Briscoe, getting his kids into the outdoors isn’t really about who shoots the biggest buck or catches the biggest fish.
It’s about the time spent together.
“There’s so many distractions in today’s world with phones and tablets and TV and just everything else,” Briscoe said. “For me to be able to get them outside and just get away from all those distractions. You get to spend one-on-one time and just make a lot of great memories.”
Those memories matter to Briscoe because he still carries his own from childhood.
“I remember going fishing with my grandpa, and some of those memories are some of my favorite memories as a kid,” he said.
Now he gets to experience that from the other side.
“To be able to be the one that’s taking my son out there and letting him have these amazing memories — he’ll always remember catching a big bass or getting that big buck,” Briscoe said. “That’s just one of those core memories that you never forget.”
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Briscoe is still relatively new to hunting compared to lifelong outdoorsmen, but he’s already thinking about what comes next.
“I would love to do an elk hunt,” he said. “I’ve been able to do a lot of really cool whitetail hunts. Even last year, I got to go to South Texas — now two years in a row — and I’ve loved that. But I would love to go out west and do an elk hunt or even a mule deer hunt.”
The different terrain and challenge appeal to him, particularly the idea of getting close to an elk with a bow.
“Going archery hunting for an elk, I just find that so fascinating,” Briscoe said. “I think that would be one of the coolest things to do, is get an elk and get one that close.”
The hiking part? Maybe slightly less appealing.
“I don’t know if I would enjoy that part as much,” he joked.
Still, Briscoe hopes he gets the chance someday.
And if he does, there’s already an obvious candidate to tag along.
Brooks.
“He would have the energy too, to be hiking and walking around all the time,” Briscoe said. “So yeah, if we get to do it one day, maybe he’ll go with me.”
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