With a dramatic last-lap surge to the lead, Chase Briscoe won at Talladega Superspeedway to secure his NASCAR Cup Series debut in the Championship 4.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver joined teammate Denny Hamlin in the Nov. 2 title race at Phoenix Raceway after emerging from an overtime scramble at Talladega with his third victory of the season and fifth of his Cup career.
Briscoe made his winning move on the backstretch of the 2.66-mile oval with a nifty pass of Bubba Wallace, seizing the lead by swinging his No. 19 Toyota into the bottom lane with help from JGR teammate Ty Gibbs. Briscoe joined JGR this season after making the playoffs twice with Stewart-Haas Racing.
Joe Gibbs Racing has clinched half of the Championship 4 field.
“Ty Gibbs, incredible teammate there,” the 30-year-old from Mitchell, Indiana, told NBC Sports’ Marty Snider. “I honestly would not have won that race without Ty. An amazing team effort. I can’t believe I won a superspeedway race. I haven’t done it at any level. It’s not hit me. We’re going to Phoenix.
“So thankful that the Lord has blessed me opening doors, even closing doors at times. Opening an incredible door here with Joe Gibbs Racing. I say it all the time, even today, I had such a peace. Normally, I’m scared to death and a nervous wreck around this place. I had such a peace today.”
Todd Gilliland finished second, followed by Ty Gibbs, Wallace and Cole Custer as Briscoe was the only playoff driver to finish in the top five. Christopher Bell (eighth) was the only other playoff driver in the top 15.
It’s the first superspeedway victory for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver.
While a boon for Briscoe, the final lap was disastrous with massive championship implications for Hendrick Motorsports, which held the top two spots on the final restart with playoff drivers William Byron and Kyle Larson running side by side.
But Larson ran out of fuel on the last lap and finished 26th, and Byron finished 25th after spinning off Turn 4 while battling for a top-five finish.
“Just unfortunate that it didn’t work out there,” Larson told NBC Sports’ Kim Coon. “It started giving me a warning there in the middle of (turns) 1 and 2, and down the back, it started stumbling, so I just got out of the way. It’s probably one of the more bummer superspeedway finishes I’ve had just because we were once again in contention, and it was right where I wanted to be, but it didn’t work out. So we’ll keep putting ourselves in contention, and it’ll eventually work out.”
Larson recounts ‘bummer’ finish at Talladega
Kyle Larson came up a few laps short of a strong finish at Talladega, but a miscommunication with crew chief Cliff Daniels on how far Larson’s remaining fuel would take him led to a “bummer” finish in 26th.
Being unable to work with his teammate through the last few corners, “just kind of broke up all the energy,” Byron said. “It’s just the way that it goes. Just felt like I was in the right position on the bottom lane, and we just couldn’t get linked up off (Turn) 4, and those guys pushed past us, and then (Larson) ran out of fuel. Just couldn’t quite get the pushes to go our way at the very end.”
Instead of heading into the Round of 8 finale with one driver locked into the championship round with a win and another on the verge of making it on points, the title picture is much grimmer for Hendrick.
With Briscoe and Hamlin having qualified for Phoenix, two championship-eligible spots are remaining in the Oct. 26 race at Martinsville Speedway with at least one being awarded on points.
Bell (plus-37 points) and Kyle Larson (plus-36) are above the cutline, and William Byron (minus-36), Joey Logano (minus-38), Ryan Blaney (minus-47) and Chase Elliott (minus-62) all are virtually facing a must-win scenario at Martinsville to make the championship field.
“You’ve got to assume that one of those guys below the cutline is going to win,” Larson said. “They’re all really good there. So then kind of got to fight with (Bell) throughout the night and try to outpoint him. We have a decent Martinsville package, as does everybody in the Round of 8, so it’ll be a fight. Even if I didn’t win, I wish we would have had those 20 spots at least, so that part sucks. We executed a great day today. We’ll try to do the same next week.”
Byron: Pushing and shoving ‘the way that it goes’
William Byron justifies the hits he dished out and received as being “the way that it goes” in high-stakes races and laments being out of position and not having any pushes go his way at Talladega.
Said Byron: “Definitely got to go (to Martinsville) and try to win the race. We’ve put ourselves in position to win these last two, so I don’t’ see why it would be any different there. Just got to go there and regroup and try to win.”
The Team Penske duo of Logano and Blaney was also left frustrated by the finish at Talladega. Logano led a race-high 35 of 193 laps but finished 16th after getting stuck in traffic in the final two restarts.
“It was a battle throughout the day,” Logano told NBC Sports’ Dave Burns. “The laps that mattered, we weren’t there, unfortunately. Didn’t have a good enough start in the first stage. Went from the lead back to fifth or sixth. The second stage with the caution falling in the green-flag cycle got us in a bad spot there. Then I thought we were in a good spot at the end and had a teammate in front of me, which is the perfect lineup. I can’t say everyone did a good enough job to stay up there and do our part.
Logano: Talladega ‘a battle throughout the day’
Joey Logano reflects on the “battle” at Talladega that leaves him frustrated after being unable to capitalize on what was a solid day all things considered.
“Really frustrating because you’re so close and see in front of you what you’ve got to do, and you can’t do anything about it. It’s frustrating. We know what we’ve got to do now (at Martinsville). It’s pretty simple.”
Blaney has made the past two championship rounds by winning at Martinsville. That brought some solace after a 23rd-place finish at Talladega that he blamed partly on a lack of drafting help from other Ford drivers.
“I thought we did a good job,” Blaney told NBC Sports’ Dillon Welch. “Got control of the race after the last pit stop and just faded. Had some guys saving (fuel) or something. I don’t know. They wouldn’t push. It was pretty surprising a couple of guys weren’t pushing. I figured we’d have a little more help than that from some people. But I thought we did a great job, me and Joey getting ourselves in the position we needed, and then it just fell apart and finished terrible.”
Blaney ‘just faded’ near end at Talladega
Ryan Blaney was proud of the position he and his team put themselves in, but the car “just faded” in the closing laps of the race that puts him in a must-win situation heading to Martinsville.
“Try to go have a big day next week. That’s all we can do.”
Elliott was the first playoff driver to encounter major trouble Sunday at Talladega.
The seven-time Most Popular Driver was collected in a nine-car crash on Lap 52 that started in Turn 3 with a mistimed bump by Erik Jones to leader Noah Gragson. AJ Allmendinger then was bumped in the right rear by Gragson, shooting his No. 16 Chevrolet into a heavy right-front impact with the outside wall.
As black smoke poured from his heavily damaged car, Allmendinger climbed from the cockpit and took a moment to lie on the asphalt while waiting for safety workers. He gingerly walked to an ambulance under his own power.
“I feel all right,” Allmendinger told NBC Sports’ Dillon Welch after exiting the infield care center. “It knocked the breath out of me. As I stopped it, I felt like the car was catching on fire, so got out and tried to get my breath back. Feel OK now. I’ll probably be sore. A hard hit for my old body.
Dega wreck ‘knocked the wind out of’ Allmendinger
AJ Allmendinger admits he’ll “probably be sore” after taking a bit hit in Stage 1 at Talladega and shares his perspective of the wreck that validates why he “hates this place.”
“Proud of our guys. Got it up front there. I kind of make these decisions after the pit stop, when you get to the front, maybe I’ll go run to the end of the stage, and I think we were leading there. Joey (Logano) was doing a really good job pushing me in the right areas. I felt we could direct both lines. I had Noah next to me and looked like Noah got turned getting in the corner, and it turned me straight up into the fence. So it’s disappointing. It’s why I hate this place. But it’s part of this racing. At least we were up front for a little bit there. Sucks to have it happen so early. But at the end of the day, I get to kiss (wife) Tara and (son) Aero, and I’ll be a little sore. Other than that, just disappointing. Always expect the worst here and hope for the best, and today we got the worst.”
Gragson said the push from Jones was too much to handle while controlling his lane from first.
“You usually get those pushes late in the race in the third stage, but he was just pushing hard,” Gragson said. “It’s unfortunate. The back straightaway here is really rough, and I was pushed in the wrong area and started wheelbarrowing down the backstretch before he caught me.”
Elliott finished last because of the damage to his No. 9 Chevrolet, which will be in a must-win situation in the Round of 8 finale Oct. 26 at Martinsville Speedway. In 2020, Elliott won at Martinsville to advance to the championship round and then captured the title with a win at Phoenix Raceway.
Elliott after exit: ‘All eyes on Martinsville’
Chase Elliott has “all eyes on Martinsville” with a simple assignment to win after wrecking out of the YellaWood 500 at Talladega.
“The assignment is very simple (for Martinsville),” Elliott told Welch. “I don’t know about the crash. I saw someone get turned sideways. Just trying to get slowed up like normal and ended up getting turned sideways and slid into some people, and they slid back into me. I hate it. I felt like we had ourselves in a good spot before the cycle. I didn’t feel we executed the cycle very well. That put us back in the back again. I’m not sure if that would have helped us miss the wreck or not. All that’s very circumstantial.
“It is what it is. I can’t change it now. Just all eyes on Martinsville and try to go up there and get a win.”
Austin Cindric, Justin Haley, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Austin Dillon and Chris Buescher also were involved in the wreck.
The caution set up a two-lap dash to the yellow that ended Stage 1, and only three playoff drivers were in the top 10 to earn points at Lap 60: Ryan Blaney (fourth), Joey Logano (sixth) and Christopher Bell (10th).
Stage 1 winner: Ty Gibbs
Stage 2 winner: Chase Briscoe
Next: Sunday, Oct. 26, 2 p.m. ET at Martinsville Speedway on NBC on Peacock