NASCAR takeaways: Chase Briscoe outduels Kyle Busch for final Cup playoff spot
DARLINGTON, S.C. — Chase Briscoe held off Kyle Busch for a walk-off victory Sunday that launched him into the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs while delivering a crushing blow to drivers hoping to make the playoffs on points.
Briscoe captured the regular-season finale as he led the final 26 laps of the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway in becoming the 14th driver to earn a playoff spot with a win, leaving Martin Truex Jr. and Ty Gibbs as the only winless drivers to make the 16-driver playoff field.
"I knew it was going to be one of those do-or-die moments," Briscoe said. "We talked about it before the race today, this is the last bullet in the chamber. ... If we executed all night long, I knew we would be in the mix.
"We executed. And we were in the mix at the end."
Chris Buescher missed the cut by six points while Bubba Wallace missed it by 27 points. For much of the race, Buescher and Wallace seemed to be in a tight battle for the final playoff spot while Kyle Larson led 263 of the 367 laps. Busch, who also went winless this year, came up short as he finished second in the final two regular-season races.
"Our best wasn't good enough — as simple as that," Wallace said.
Joining Briscoe, Truex and Gibbs in the playoffs are Tyler Reddick (the regular-season champion), Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, William Byron, Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Austin Cindric, Chase Elliott, Daniel Suarez, Brad Keselowski Alex Bowman and Harrison Burton.
Takeaways after the regular-season finale, where for the second consecutive week, a driver needing a win to make the playoffs made it happen:
Briscoe Win-And-In
Briscoe entered the race 18th in the standings and 114 points behind the playoff cutoff, meaning he had no other path to the playoffs except to win.
But it was more than that fact that made this an exhilarating moment. He earned a spot in the playoffs for Stewart-Haas Racing, which is closing at the end of the season. Briscoe, who snapped a 93-race winless streak, drives the team's iconic No. 14 car that was first driven by Tony Stewart.
"It's huge," Briscoe said. "I'm a diehard Stewart-Haas fan. That's the car I cheered for growing up. I've seen that car win time and time and time again, win a championship."
'I was crying' — Chase Briscoe on winning Cook Out Southern 500
Busch, who was on slightly fresher tires at the end, just couldn't catch Briscoe and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2012.
"We didn't have much speed there through a majority of the race," Busch said. "We were just mired in traffic, and we weren't able to get up through there.
"But once we got up there, I felt like those last three or four restarts, we were going to have a shot running in the top-5. But then we had a shot for the win and just couldn't make it up there."
Briscoe thanked Busch for racing him clean.
"Here he is in second. I'm like, ‘You've got to be kidding me — I've worked 300 some laps to get to the lead, now Kyle is going to steal it from us,'" Briscoe said.
Wreck And Advance
Truex and Gibbs earned the two playoff spots for winless drivers and they both had some moments to sweat as both were involved in wrecks.
Truex ended up making it by just six points after entering the race guaranteed a spot if there was a repeat winner. He wrecked on the second lap of the race and finished 36th, not knowing if he would make the playoffs until the end of the second stage.
"This is miserable," Truex said before he knew whether he made the playoffs. "I just hate it for my team. … They deserve better. It's just a mistake."
NASCAR Cup Series: Cook Out Southern 500 Highlights
Gibbs was involved in a wreck with 23 laps to go when Josh Berry got loose while three-wide with Gibbs and Hamlin. Gibbs was able to continue and made the cut by 12 points. If he had been knocked out of the race, he likely still would have made it, but it would have been only by a couple of positions.
"We just got ran really — I would say dirty right there — that was unfortunate," Gibbs said. "That was definitely closer than it should have been."
Reddick Guts Out Regular-Season Title
Tyler Reddick battled a stomach bug throughout the entire race, feeling as if he was going to either throw up or have a case of diarrhea throughout the entire race. He wound up 10th, and with Larson finishing fourth, beat Larson by one point for the regular-season title.
The regular-season title is worth 15 playoff points (points a driver can use to advance if he doesn't win in the three-race playoff rounds) while second place is worth 10. Larson, with the most wins of any driver this year, would have won a tiebreaker.
Reddick, who believes he caught the bug from his child, said it was the worst he ever felt in a race car.
"It was terrible on Saturday," Reddick said. "[I] woke up Sunday with the same hoping it would be gone again.
"I felt good pretty much all the way up until the race. It just must have been the bump off of [Turn] 2 or something. It just really, really got bad by the end of Stage 1. It just stayed there the rest of the way."
Larson nearly won the regular-season title despite missing the May race at Charlotte while he competed in the rain-delayed Indianapolis 500.
"It's not just that one," Larson said. "I could have finished at Michigan or finished at Iowa or finished at Chicago and not even been close today. I don't look at Indy as being the reason why. That's just part of my season. I wouldn't give up running the Indy 500 for five bonus points."
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
