DARLINGTON, S.C. (AP) — Chase Briscoe went three-wide to pass Kyle Larson and Ross Chastain for the lead, then outran two-time series champion Kyle Busch to win the Southern 500 on Sunday night and make the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.
Briscoe pulled away on a final restart with 17 laps in the regular-season finale at Darlington Raceway and held off Busch, who like Briscoe needed a victory to reach the postseason.
“We just won the Southern 500!” an emotional Briscoe said on the car radio.
Briscoe’s Stewart-Haas Team announced its closure earlier this season. Briscoe gave the proud program something to fight for over the final 10 weeks of the season.
“Yeah, this group, the day we found out that the team wasn’t going to exist anymore, we went over to the shop board, looked at each other and said, ‘We’re in this to the end,’” Briscoe said. “I was saying all week, `We’ve got one bullet left in the chamber.’ That bullet hit.”
Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Ty Gibbs and Martin Truex Jr. got the final two postseason spots on points, while Bubba Wallace and Chastain, both within 27 points of the cutoff line when the race began, came up short.
Briscoe’s dramatic move spoiled another dominant Darlington run by Kyle Larson, who led 263 laps but was not the same after getting passed by the winner. Larson was trying to overtake Tyler Reddick for the regular-season points title — and the 15 bonus points the leader receives — but came up a point short.
Christopher Bell was third, followed by Larson, Chastain, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Corey LaJoie and Reddick.
Truex, racing his last season before retirement, just needed a solid, problem-free run at the track “Too Tough To Tame” to advance. Instead, he left his fate in others’ hands when he crashed out on Lap 3 as his car slid up and hit defending NASCAR champion Ryan Blaney.
But following Larson’s victory in the second stage — he also won the first stage — NASCAR announced that Truex had wrapped up a spot in the 16-driver playoff field.
Bubba Wallace entered the weekend as the first-man out of the playoffs and got a boost when he won his first Darlington pole Saturday. But with 23XI co-owner Michael Jordan in his pit box to watch, Wallace got caught up in a six-car wreck 24 laps from the finish.
Jordan, wearing a headset and watching intently, threw his hands up and bowed his head when he saw Wallace involved in the wreck.
“Wasn’t good enough for 16th this year, hate that,” Wallace said. “Stinks saying that, but wasn’t for a lack of effort.”
Busch came up short a second straight week, losing to a fellow winless driver this season. He was beaten by Harrison Burton last week at Daytona.
“Hate it for our guys,” said Busch, who won titles in 2015 and 2019. “Something to build on and get better for. We just missed a lot early in the year, the middle part of the year to be in this spot, on the outside looking in.”
Playoff field
Reddick won the regular-season title, with Larson in second. The rest of the playoff field is: Chase Elliott, followed by Christopher Bell, William Byron, Blaney, Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Austin Cindric, Daniel Suarez, Alex Bowman, Briscoe, Gibbs and Truex.
The first round starts in Atlanta, then goes to Watkins Glen and Bristol before the field is cut to 12.
Honoring Cale
Cale Yarborough, the Hall of Famer driver who died at age 84 on New Year’s Eve, was remembered at his hometown track as Dale Jarrett drove the 1977 Oldsmobile Cutlass that Yarborough used to win his third straight Cup Series title in 1978 during pace laps. Yarborough won five of the Labor Day weekend crown jewel races, second to Jeff Gordon’s six, at Darlington after growing up there a few miles away.
Up next
The playoffs start next week at Atlanta on Sunday, with the first round continuing at Watkins Glen and Bristol the following two weeks.
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AP NASCAR: https://apnews.com/hub/nascar-racing
