DARLINGTON, S.C. — Chase Briscoe, driving for a team that will close after this season and in need of a win to make the playoffs, scored a dramatic Southern 500 victory as the NASCAR Cup regular season came to an end.
Briscoe — winless in the last 93 Cup races — took the lead from Ross Chastain off a restart with 26 laps to go and held off two-time champion Kyle Busch, also in need of a win to make the playoffs. Busch finished second.
Three playoff spots were up for grabs Sunday night. Martin Truex Jr., and Ty Gibbs joined Briscoe in securing those positions. That left Chris Buescher, Bubba Wallace and Ross Chastain — all drivers who were in the playoffs last year — failing to advance.
MORE: Southern 500 results
Briscoe drives for Stewart-Haas Racing, which announced earlier this year that it was closing its shop. That forced more than 300 employees to look for work beyond this season. Sunday’s win was the first in the Cup Series for the organization this year.
“This group, the day that we found out that the team wasn’t going to exist any more, we went over to the shop floor, we all looked at each other and said, ‘We’re in this till the end,’” Briscoe said.
Truex Jr. had to sit through the first two stages of the race to see if he would make the playoffs after crashing on the third lap.
Truex was racing with William Byron for sixth place on the second lap when he lost control underneath Byron’s car. Truex’s car went up the track and crashed into Ryan Blaney’s car. Both Truex and Blaney were done for the race.
“I’m an idiot,” Truex said on his team’s radio after the incident.
Christopher Bell finished third. Kyle Larson, who led a race-high 263 laps was fourth and Chastain placed fifth. Gibbs earned his first playoff spot after finishing 20th.
Tyler Reddick, who was sick in his car, finished 10th to win the regular season championship.
“That’s the worst I’ve felt. I don’t know, I guess just a stomach bug or something,” Reddick said.
” ... Felt good pretty much all the way up until the race. I don’t know, just must have been the bump off of (Turn) 2 or something. It just really, really got bad by the end of stage one. It just stayed there the rest of the way.
“Just really thankful that a lot of great people on our team. They were feeding me the right stuff in the car to help me manage it best as I could. Just smart people. Able to put the right stuff in my drink to help calm my stomach down. At one point, I was just waiting to puke all over myself. Thankfully they kept that from happening.”
Stage 1 winner: Kyle Larson
Stage 2 winner: Kyle Larson
Who had a good race:
Who had a bad race: Martin Truex Jr. lost control of his car and crashed into Ryan Blaney on the second lap. Blaney finished last in the 37-car field. Truex was 36th.
Next: The playoffs begins Sunday, Sept. 8 at Atlanta Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET on USA Network)