{"id":634155,"date":"2026-04-28T13:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T13:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/634155\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T13:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T13:07:08","slug":"nascar-cup-series-championship-contender-drops-out-of-the-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/634155\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR Cup Series championship contender drops out of the playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"76\">Joe Gibbs Racing&#8217;s Chase Briscoe, who scored seven poles, won three races, and advanced all the way to the Championship 4 in his first season as the replacement for Martin Truex Jr. behind the wheel of the No. 19 Toyota a year ago, has spent much of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season below the provisional &#8220;Chase&#8221; playoff cut line.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"79\">That can largely be attributed to the fact that <a href=\"https:\/\/beyondtheflag.com\/chase-briscoe-disastrous-start-2026-somehow-just-got-even-worse-01kk7n22vqjk\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">he scored exactly one point in three of the season&#8217;s first four races<\/a>, all thanks to DNFs related to situations out of his control.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7c\">However, over the past few weeks, he had made significant ground on that cut line, and with a third place finish at Kansas Speedway two Sundays ago, <a href=\"https:\/\/beyondtheflag.com\/nascar-cup-driver-drops-playoffs-everyone-saw-coming-01kpmj7rfzmv\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">he bumped out Trackhouse Racing&#8217;s Shane van Gisbergen<\/a> for a spot in that 16-driver picture.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7f\">In fact, he vaulted his way up to 15th, <a href=\"https:\/\/beyondtheflag.com\/nascar-new-last-place-playoff-driver-after-kansas-shakeup-01kpqsrjm4kf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">placing Spire Motorsports&#8217; Daniel Suarez on the cut line<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Chase Briscoe drops back below NASCAR playoff cut line<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7l\">Now, thanks to yet another wreck that was out of his control, <a href=\"https:\/\/beyondtheflag.com\/talladega-nascar-cup-series-results-full-point-standings-01kq1aa2zgy1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Briscoe again finds himself outside of the top 16<\/a>. He is the only Joe Gibbs Racing driver not inside the top nine.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7o\">Team Penske&#8217;s Austin Cindric moved into 16th with his <a href=\"https:\/\/beyondtheflag.com\/nascar-cup-series-talladega-full-jack-links-500-race-results-01kq1aa7v9nt\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">eighth place finish in Sunday&#8217;s Jack Link&#8217;s 500<\/a> at Talladega Superspeedway, while Briscoe dropped to four points below the cutoff with a 29th place finish.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7r\">That finish notably could have been a lot worse, as Briscoe picked up seven points simply by staying in the race with repairs after his involvement in the &#8220;Big One&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7u\">Suarez finds himself 14th, 13 points ahead, while Team Penske&#8217;s Joey Logano is 15th, 12 points ahead. The 14th to 18th place drivers, with Trackhouse Racing&#8217;s Ross Chastain the last of those five, are separated by just 30 total points.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7x\">Given the overall performance and speed of the No. 19 team, it&#8217;s hard to imagine that Briscoe won&#8217;t end up in the playoffs. However, he&#8217;s only 16th in stage points as well, so execution simply needs to improve from start to finish as the halfway mark of the regular season approaches.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"83\">Texas Motor Speedway is scheduled to host the next race on the schedule, the Wurth 400. Live coverage is set to be provided by Fox Sports 1 beginning at 3:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, May 3. Start a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fubo.tv\/welcome?irad=343747&amp;irmp=1412332&amp;subId1=FS-2024streaming\" rel=\"nofollow sponsored noopener\" target=\"_blank\">free trial of FuboTV<\/a> and catch all of the action from the Lone Star State!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow beyondtheflag.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=beyondtheflag.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joe Gibbs Racing&#8217;s Chase Briscoe, who scored seven poles, won three races, and advanced all the way to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-634155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}