[h=2]IMSA: Briscoe's wild tale of birth and victory[/h] Wednesday, 06 July 2016


Marshall Pruett / Images by LAT & courtesy of Ryan Briscoe








Few racecar drivers have experienced the wild emotional swings Ryan Briscoe endured late last week. With an event at Watkins Glen with the Ford Chip Ganassi Racing team, his wife Nicole on the clock to give birth to their second child, and the absolute need to focus on both duties at the same time, Briscoe's stretch from Thursday through Sunday must have felt like his own private endurance race.
Start with all of the baby-related driving back and forth between his home in Connecticut and the Watkins Glen track located in Upstate New York. Then add his day job competing in the Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen on Sunday, and finish it off with an amazing outcome where he welcomed daughter Blake James Briscoe to the world (below) and won the GT Le Mans class with teammate Richard Westbrook in a three-day span.
With a day or two to gather his thoughts at the amazing adventure, a sleep-deprived and slightly delirious Australian recounted the experience for RACER.
"It was pretty crazy," Briscoe said. "I thought I would try to be in two places at once over the weekend. A little bit of racing, a little bit of baby making, and it all worked out pretty well for me.
"I live in Connecticut. It is about a five-hour drive from Watkins Glen where I had the race this weekend. Nicole, she's 37 weeks pregnant. We weren't expecting the baby until another two-plus weeks from last week. But she went to the doctor last Wednesday and the doctors [saw] she had high blood pressure. They were a little bit worried. She was reading ahead in the pregnancy size wise, [a] week ahead, she had a bit of swelling. It looked like she was carrying a lot of fluids. The doctors were like, all right, let's keep an eye on this, we want you to come back Friday morning if your blood pressure is still high, most likely were going to want to pull the baby out for your own safety.
"Thursday I drive to Watkins Glen as planned. Obviously, with the cell phone on hand at all times. We did all our prep work and meetings and track walk and so forth. I was talking to Nicole Thursday night. She had had some additional information from the doctors from some bloodwork she had done and it sounded like there was now just maybe a five percent chance that she would have the baby the next day. I was pretty relaxed and said, 'OK, it's good. It will probably be next week or something.' But she went to the doctor at 8:30 on Friday morning, we had first practice at like 11 a.m. or something, [and] I was hanging back at the hotel till I heard from Nicole.
"Alas, 8:35 she gives me the call, she's all in tears and she's like, 'We are having a baby today! I had already talked to the team on Thursday and told them about the possible scenario that we would be having the baby the next day. They told me they were perfectly cool with me skipping practice. We'd play it by ear from there as to how things were going. In the car I jumped. Five hours back to Hartford Hospital. And out came the baby at 5:30 that afternoon."