A hat-trick of wins in the fall race at Darlington was on the cards for Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe. He had won the Cook Out Southern 500 in 2024 and 2025 and was leading this year’s Chase opener with just 24 laps to go. Then, he made a decision that left him questioning his instincts in the aftermath of the race.
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“Definitely missing out on the win. I was tasting it, obviously, getting there at the end. I thought I was doing everything I needed to do to drive the back like that,” Briscoe said to journalist Steven Taranto after the race on Sunday.
He was talking about the moments leading up to the final restart. Briscoe gave up the lead by pitting for fresher tires under caution, while the four cars ahead of him stayed out. When the race went green, his “gut” told him to choose the bottom lane for the restart. It turned out to be the wrong call, as he was overtaken almost immediately in Turn 2 by Christopher Bell, Ty Gibbs, and Tyler Reddick.
Briscoe thought he would jump out and quickly retake the lead, which is why he asked his JGR crew to adjust his car setup to be tighter. But he got stuck in traffic, and the move backfired. His car was simply too tight to make a move.
“I was told to take the bottom, and as a group we agreed the bottom was going to be best, but it just wasn’t something I did. I watched it back. I just came off Turn 2, and three or four of the guys that were behind me were all of a sudden ahead of me,” Briscoe also said in his interview.
In the grander scheme of things, the No. 19 driver did not have a disastrous weekend, however disappointing the outcome was. A third straight Cook Out Southern 500 win would have been nice, but he actually made up ground in the Chase.
Briscoe remains fifth in the standings, but his deficit to leader Denny Hamlin has shrunk from 45 points to 37. He acknowledged that and admitted the team accomplished what it needed to do. Still, a victory that the No. 19 team may have thrown away also cost them a significant haul, considering how many points a trip to Victory Lane can earn.
Bell, who passed Briscoe in the closing stages, won the Cook Out Southern 500 and earned 73 points, moving him to second in the standings, just 12 points behind Hamlin. Briscoe, by comparison, earned 30 fewer points than his teammate. A sharp contrast to how he left feeling at the same historic track in both 2024 and 2025.
In 2024, he won the Southern 500 driving for Stewart-Haas Racing. It wasn’t a postseason race, but Briscoe had to win to book a spot. This was back when NASCAR had the “win, and you’re in” format for its now-defunct playoff system. That day, he snapped a 73-race winless streak and held off a relentless Kyle Busch to win the crown jewel.
The next year was completely different. Briscoe, now with Joe Gibbs Racing, dominated the race, leading 309 laps. Late in the race, he developed an alternator issue but held off a charging Tyler Reddick to win by 0.4 seconds.
On Sunday, he could have added another great chapter to the story. But sadly, unlike the previous two seasons, he made the wrong decision. The gap to the top for Briscoe, however, narrowed largely because of a disastrous start to the Chase for Denny Hamlin.
Denny Hamlin’s dismal start to the Chase
Hamlin actually began the race well, finishing third in both Stage 1 and Stage 2. However, a slow pit stop, re-entry into traffic and a collision with Michael McDowell left him with damage, and ultimately, an 18th-place finish was all he could manage.
“I mean, you know, it’s a professional sport, so you can’t have big mistakes. We just had a tough pit stop there that set us back from third to about 20th. Once we got back there, you know, you’re with guys that are a little bit more aggressive and don’t really care about the points or anything like that,” Hamlin said.
That said, the 45-year-old isn’t pressing the alarm bells yet, considering he still holds the No. 1 spot. Darlington was a track he was worried about even before the Chase began, and now that’s out of the way.
The fourth JGR driver, Ty Gibbs, finished second in the race but dropped two places to sixth in the standings. Still, with nine races left in the Chase, Gibbs, along with Hamlin, Bell and Briscoe, remains firmly in contention for the crown.
For Briscoe, the Southern 500 will likely be remembered as the race that got away. He had the car to win, only for one decision on the final restart to change everything. Now, he will have to put the disappointment behind him and look ahead to Gateway.
