![\"NASCAR](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/351f1b8a-fb36-4fbc-a0e7-b9b8201d66a1.jpeg\" "\\"NASCAR")
David Jensen\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\nWith two consecutive victories, Chase Briscoe has erased a 58-point deficit to standings leader Kyle Larson, jumping from eighth to fourth with four races remaining, and crew chief James Small said they can\u2019t let up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019ve got to step on their throats while we can,\u201d Small said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to let off the throttle pedal right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked if Briscoe was a step-on-someone\u2019s-throat kind of guy, the Australian native laughed and said, \u201cDefinitely not.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe puts his helmet on and he\u2019s silent, but he\u2019s like a silent assassin,\u201d Small said about Briscoe.<\/p>\n
In Sunday\u2019s Bank of America 400, Briscoe managed a tire that was cording in the closing laps to defeat Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell by a nose. The two drivers drag raced off the fourth turn to deliver the second closest finish in Charlotte Motor Speedway\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat an amazing run we\u2019ve been on,\u201d Briscoe said after earning his third victory this season and the eighth of his NASCAR Cup career. \u201cMy hero is Tony Stewart. He made a pretty unbelievable run, and, hopefully, we can do the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
David Jensen\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Chase Briscoe (#19) beat Christopher Bell by a nose.<\/p>\n
In 2011, Stewart claimed his third Cup championship by winning five of the 10 Chase races after having a winless regular season.<\/p>\n
With 10 laps remaining in Sunday\u2019s 267-lap Charlotte race, Briscoe possessed a comfortable 2.180-second lead over Bell. However, with five laps to go Bell had cut it to 1.811 seconds. Briscoe was in traffic and Bell was closing fast.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of a sudden I just noticed my car just quit turning,\u201d Briscoe said. \u201cThen after a lap or two, I realized that my right front was about to go down. We had been cording tires, at least the right front, the last couple runs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just caught that pack of lapped cars and with the right front starting to cord I just started to get really, really tight. Truthfully, another lap, it maybe blows the right front with how much it was coming apart. I just couldn\u2019t do anything. I was just kind of hanging on.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the final lap, Bell charged to the inside in turns three and four and as they drag raced off the fourth turn, Bell slammed into the side of Briscoe, knocking him into the wall, but Briscoe never lifted and finished 0.029-second ahead of Bell.<\/p>\n
![\"NASCAR](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/6905ddc5-7338-4092-9cef-8b52ce4b4028.jpeg\" "\\"NASCAR")
David Jensen\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Chase Briscoe gets a hug from his son, Brooks.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf all the people that I could have raced against there to the line, Christopher is the most respectful guy in the garage,\u201d said Briscoe, who now trails Larson by 65 points. \u201cI knew he wasn\u2019t going to do anything to me to wreck me. I love racing with Christopher because you always know you\u2019re gonna get respect, and you can\u2019t say that about some guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Team owner Joe Gibbs said he watched his two drivers fight it out to the checkered flag, but he knew his blood pressure increased and his heartbeat accelerated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s always when I\u2019m the most nervous, when a couple of our cars are up front because I know had bad Christopher wants to win, how bad Chase wants to win,\u201d Gibbs said. \u201cIt (wrecking each other) can definitely happen when you get together. I always worry about it. It has happened to us in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
Small calmly said, \u201cWe know how to make it interesting all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just glad they checked each other\u2019s momentum enough, and we had enough to get across,\u201d Small said. <\/p>\n
![\"Lettermark\"](\"https:\/\/www.autoweek.com\/_assets\/design-tokens\/autoweek\/static\/images\/logos\/lettermark.de67f45.svg?primary=%2523000\")
<\/p>\n
A North Carolina native, Deb Williams is an award-winning motorsports journalist who is in her fourth decade covering auto racing. In addition to covering the sport for United Press International, she has written motorsports articles for several newspapers, magazines and websites including espnW.com<\/a>, USA Today, and The Charlotte Observer. Her awards include the American Motorsports Media Award of Excellence, two-time National Motorsports Press Association writer of the year, and two-time recipient of the Russ Catlin award. She also has won an award in the North Carolina Press Association\u2019s sports feature category.\u00a0 During her career, Deb has been managing editor of GT Motorsports magazine and was with Winston Cup Scene and NASCAR Winston Cup Scene for 18 years, serving as the publication\u2019s editor for 10 years. In 2024 she was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With two consecutive victories, Chase Briscoe has erased a 58-point deficit to standings leader Kyle Larson, jumping from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":879249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[872,369652,874,265529,873,425,369651,316394,99,369653],"class_list":["post-879248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-fbdd5dcf-9fba-448c-8b6b-71ca8280221f","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-us","tag-nascar","tag-shorttitle-briscoe-is-suddenly-back-in-nascars-title-fight","tag-sponsored-false","tag-sports","tag-subsection-nascar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=879248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/879249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}