The 2025 season has been one filled with firsts for Chase Briscoe, and he added two more at NASCAR’s wild-card playoff race on Sunday.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver roared to victory in overtime in the Cup Series’ Round of 8 middle race, the YellaWood 500, at Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, Ala.
The No. 19 driver moved below leader Bubba Wallace on the backstretch and beat Todd Gilliland by 0.145 seconds for his third win of the season.
That secured the 30-year-old Briscoe’s first career appearance in the Championship 4 race weekend in Phoenix in two weeks, where he will be joined by teammate Denny Hamlin and two other title-chasers to be determined in the round’s Oct. 26 finale at the short track in Martinsville.
“Ty Gibbs. Just an incredible teammate there,” said Briscoe, who led 16 laps. “Honestly, I wouldn’t have won that race without Ty. It’s an amazing team effort. I can’t believe I won a superspeedway race (for the first time). I haven’t done it at any level.”
Gibbs, who pushed Briscoe to his victory, finished third, while Wallace and Cole Custer rounded out the top-five finishers.
With Briscoe and Hamlin locked in to the top two spots in the standings, Christopher Bell rides in third, 37 points to the good.
Kyle Larson, the 2021 champion, ran out of gas in overtime and finished 26th in his 400th career Cup start. He is in fourth place, 36 points above the cutoff line.
Below it are William Byron (-36), Joey Logano (-38), Ryan Blaney (-47) and Chase Elliott (-62), who will all likely need a win at the tiny Virginia bullring to race for a championship in Arizona.
The 2020 champion, Elliott had his title hopes take a major hit in a wreck as Stage 1 neared its conclusion with AJ Allmendinger leading. Elliott finished in last.
Featuring a 40-car field, the 34th race of the season at the high-banked superspeedway started rather tame and remained that way as polesitter Michael McDowell led them and pit stops began on Lap 43.
With Allmendinger up front and in the closing circuits of 60-lap Stage 1, the race’s first caution flew after an eight-car incident on the backstretch started by Erik Jones spinning second-place driver Noah Gragson.
The resulting melee collected Elliott, who spun to the bottom and whose No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was struck by Austin Dillon’s No. 3.
Gibbs won the short shootout to end the segment. Tyler Reddick, John Hunter Nemechek, Blaney and Wallace followed behind for the bonus points.
With about 70 laps left, Shane van Gisbergen spun his No. 88 on pit road and became stuck in the wet infield grass. The third caution somehow did not involve any of the 17 cars that came to pit road.
On the final lap of Stage 2, Larson’s No. 5 Chevrolet pulled up beside Briscoe’s No. 19 Toyota, but Briscoe held off the Hendrick Motorsports driver. Carson Hocevar, Byron and Bell were right behind.
With 50 laps left, Logano, Blaney, Brad Keselowski, Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece paced a five-car Ford front, but pit stops began and shook up the field for the run to the end.
On Lap 186, Byron got a push, bumped leader Buescher and sent the No. 17 Ford down the backstretch apron and into the wall for the sixth caution.
–Field Level Media
