KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Chase Briscoe headed to the hospital on Friday when his wife, Marissa, started to feel contractions, and the driver of the No. 14 car for Stewart-Haas Racing wasn’t quite sure whether the twins they were expecting in October were arriving early.

Turned out to be a false alarm, so the couple headed home after a couple of hours. And on Saturday, Briscoe hopped on a plane to Kansas Speedway, where his quest to continue racing through the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs will continue on Sunday.

“I’ve got to qualify and I’ve got to race,” he said. “We’re here. I’m in the playoffs. If I wasn’t in the playoffs, I’d be home (in case) something happened. But the contingency plan? I’m here to race for a championship. Marissa knows that.”

With his wife still very much pregnant back home, Briscoe has even more incentive to win the race — and quickly.

Everyone is similarly on board with Briscoe’s postseason push at Stewart-Haas Racing, which is closing up shop at the end of the season. Tony Stewart is departing while co-owner Gene Haas will carry on in NASCAR’s top series, but the move has created a lot of uncertainty for the teams of Briscoe, Noah Gragson, Josh Berry and Ryan Preece the rest of the season.

In fact, the team swapped pit crews this week. Berry’s bunch from the No. 4 car have been the most consistent this season, so they are moving to Briscoe’s car for the opening race in the second round of the Cup Series playoffs.

“I do get where that outside perception is chaos,” said Briscoe, whose three-wide pass to win the Southern 500 at Darlington earlier this month got him into the playoffs. “The guys that got taken off are obviously frustrated. I get it. But at the end of the day, they want to see us win a championship, because they are part of the team.

“That’s the unique thing about our company right now is just the total buy-in, having this one goal of going out as champions.”

Briscoe has a long way to go. He was last among the 12 drivers to survive the first round of the playoffs, and he will need some consistently good runs — or a win — at Kansas, Talladega and the road course at Charlotte to keep going. But he was an underdog two years ago, too, and Briscoe managed to reach the round of eight before he was eliminated.

In the meantime, Marissa will be watching from home, waiting for twins to join big brother Brooks in cheering him on.

“I told her to literally lay down. Don’t do anything until Monday,” Briscoe said with a smile, “and on Monday, you can get on your yoga ball. Bounce around. Walk as many miles as you can.”

Larson tops the standings

After his dominant win at Bristol, Kyle Larson returns to Kansas Speedway with as much momentum as when he last left it. The 2021 series champion edged Chris Buescher in the May race by 0.001 seconds — the closest finish in Cup Series history.

Larson has six consecutive top-10 runs at Kansas, starting with a win in the playoff race during his championship season.