Chase Briscoe Reveals Who Came Up With Idea for Talladega Nights Tribute Week
Chase Briscoe and Ryan Preece are Stewart-Haas Racing teammates. This week, the pair took that partnership to a new level before the Round of 12 playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway, hilariously embracing the roles of two of the most iconic teammates to ever race there, Cal Naughton Jr. and Ricky Bobby.
While the No. 41 and 14 cars will don the familiar Wonder Bread and Old Spice paint schemes at this weekend’s race, the two drivers didn’t stop there this week, holding a mock press conference announcing the news, filming multiple commercials promoting various sponsors, and mimicking other moments and one-liners from the movie, like signing a baby.
Who came up with the idea for it all?
Chase Briscoe and Ryan Preece bring Talladega Nights to life
NASCAR fans have been treated to an entertaining show this week on social media by two drivers not necessarily known for being the most outgoing and colorful characters in SHR teammates Chase Briscoe and Ryan Preece.
By their own admission, both drivers know the 2023 season hasn’t lived up to expectations, with them combining for eight top-10 finishes through the first 30 races. But this week, the two escaped from that lackluster on-track performance in a fun and entertaining way, assuming the personas of two very different drivers, fictional characters Ricky Bobby and Cal Naughton Jr. from the 2006 box office hit comedy Talladega Nights.
They started with an introductory news conference, similar to the film. And then, in one of the funniest moments from the week, both Briscoe and Preece cut promos for some of their real sponsors, but in the familiar style of the movie, including Briscoe-Naughton addressing male body odor by using Old Spice or Preece-Bobby providing the Christmas gift idea of a Gearwrench 12-inch Pitbull Auto-Bite Tongue and Groove Dual-Material Pliers.
The pair bantered back and forth on X, repeating familiar lines, including Briscoe saying: “Hey @RyanPreece_, I think your house is haunted…hey, one more thing when you have the stereo on at the same time as the TV how do you control the volume on the TV?”
Chase Briscoe reveals who came up with idea for Talladega Nights tribute week
NASCAR fans have enjoyed following Briscoe and Preece in their newly assumed roles this week. To their credit, it’s only worked because they embraced it. The 28-year-old in particular has leaned into it, and earlier in the week during an appearance on SiriusXM NASAR Radio revealed why.
“It’s been a lot of fun,” Briscoe said. “I felt like if we were gonna do it, we had to kind of do it all in. You couldn’t just do the paint scheme but not doing anything else. So it’s been a long time in the works, I would say, probably six, seven months.
“Kind of just this crazy idea that me and the marketing team were talking, you know, like I said, six, seven months ago, and I was asking them about kind of what we had coming down the line later in the year who was going to be on the car. You know, what races, and they were like, ‘Well, Talladega. Right now, we don’t have anything.’
“If we don’t have anything, we should just do Talladega Nights,” Briscoe suggested. “See if Old Spice and Wonder and all of them want to come on board and do something. It got really hot there for a while, where I thought for sure it was gonna happen. Then, truthfully, it kind of went cold over the summer months. Sounded like it was gonna be a hard sell for them to do it. Just all the hurdles we were gonna have to jump through on the movie side and trying to get approval, things like that.
“And then, about a month and a half ago, they said yeah, we’re actually going to do this thing. So yeah, it’s been a really cool process to be a part of. You know, really an iconic movie. One that’s kind of lived on for the last 15 years.
“I feel like every week, you know, at some point during the week that movie is still on TV. A super recognizable movie with a lot of one-liners that are really funny and obviously two paint schemes that’ll be cool to be back on the racetrack. And it’s kind of crazy to think that we’re actually going to do this thing and do it in a legitimate Cup race, and nonetheless do it at Talladega.”
Shake and bake, baby.
To stay up to date on the latest happenings in NASCAR, including breaking stories you can’t find anywhere else, follow Kyle on YouTube and Twitter.
