Pocono did exactly what Pocono does on Sunday—served up a race with more strategy twists than the plot of a daytime soap opera, and about as much certainty. Fuel mileage, pit calls, desperate gambles… everyone had their moment starring in the great Pocono fuel economy drama. And as usual, half the field ran out of luck long before they ran out of gas.
In the end, though, Chase Briscoe had more than enough—barely.
Briscoe overcame a miscue during the final round of green flag stops to hold off his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate and score his first win for his new team. Not bad for a guy who, by his own admission, is usually his own worst enemy behind the wheel.
“Anybody that has worked with me knows I’m normally overdriving, missing my marks all the time,” Briscoe said. “Yeah, for sure. It’s crazy when you slow down. My dad tells me all the time, Slow down, you’ll probably go faster. It’s true there.”
A final round of green flag stops was nearly his undoing. Briscoe bailed out of pit road after just 11 seconds—sooner than crew chief James Small wanted—and suddenly his fuel situation was teetering somewhere between improbable and hopeless.
What followed was a 30-lap nail-biter: a first-year Joe Gibbs Racing driver with a gas tank that looked emptier than a politician’s promise, going head-to-head with the winningest driver Pocono has ever seen.
Briscoe’s discipline over those closing laps earned him a glimmer of hope from his crew chief with 15 to go.
“If we can maintain this,” Smalls told him over the radio. “We can get there.”
And get there they did. Briscoe held off Denny Hamlin by .682 seconds to grab the win. He also led the most laps, won Stage 2, and locked himself into another shot at the NASCAR Playoffs.
For Hamlin, second place was about as satisfying as decaf coffee. He led from the pole, dominated Stage 1, and banked valuable stage points—but the trophy went elsewhere.
“When five cars pitted and then the caution came and the 19 and a bunch of guys jumped in front of us, I knew it would be really hard to give that track position back,” Hamlin said. “It was just so hard to pass, so we did all we could we were just next best in line.”
Ryan Blaney put on his own show, rallying from the rear of the field thanks to “unapproved adjustments” and overcoming a pit road speeding penalty to finish third. Chris Buescher and Chase Elliott rounded out the top five.
“Yeah. I mean, obviously I would have liked to have won,” Blaney said. “I think after having to start in the back, then the mistake I made, I feel like we were recovered really well. Our car was fast enough to do it.
The green flag was supposed to fly just after 2:00 p.m. ET, but the Pocono Mountains had other ideas. All week the forecast called for sunshine. The mountains said, hold my beer. Heavy rain rolled in, delaying the start by over two and a half hours—because, of course, it did.
Once underway, Hamlin looked like the car to beat, cruising to the Stage 1 win. But this is Pocono, where divergent pit strategies are practically a religion, and by Lap 41, chaos began creeping in.
Riley Herbst was the first victim of brake failure, pounding the wall. Thirteen laps later, Bubba Wallace’s brakes gave up, and the second 23XI car met the same fate.
Michael McDowell joined the brake-failure club on Lap 73, but unlike the others, he managed to limp his wounded car to pit road and eventually the garage. That caution was music to the ears of Briscoe and Josh Berry, who had pitted just before McDowell’s failure and just before NASCAR threw the yellow to clean up the mess.
Taking no chances, 23XI driver Tyler Reddick ducked into the garage for a brake change. He returned 33rd, two laps down—and probably with slightly higher blood pressure.
As often happens, one caution bred another. A lap after the restart, Kyle Busch, running just outside the top 20, got loose through the Tunnel Turn. Three-wide, no room, no mercy—Busch spun up into Zane Smith. Behind them, the chain reaction began: Christopher Bell, Ty Dillon, and Shane van Gisbergen all spinning in synchronized chaos. Somehow, no one hit the wall hard, and all continued.
While others pitted, Briscoe and Berry stayed out and led to the end of Stage 2, which came just eight laps after the restart. It was Briscoe’s first stage win since August of 2022—and a sign that, for once, the racing gods might be smiling his way.
Brad Keselowski nearly crashed the party himself, but pitted under a closed pit road. He fought back, led late, and looked poised to steal the win. But the same caution that set up the final 30-lap chess match also doomed him. Forced to pit for fuel earlier than planned, Keselowski slipped to ninth, just ahead of Austin Cindric in tenth.
John Hunter Nemechek was sixth, followed by Kyle Larson and Ryan Preece.
For Briscoe, the win validated Joe Gibbs Racing’s gamble on a driver who lost his ride when Stewart-Haas Racing shut its doors last season.
“It’s huge,” Briscoe said. “I literally grew up racing my sprint car video game in a Joe Gibbs Racing Home Depot uniform. To get Coach in Victory Lane after, like I said, them taking a chance on me, it’s so rewarding truthfully. Just a big weight off my shoulders. I’ve been telling my wife the last two weeks, I have to win. To finally come here and do it, it has been a great day.”
Next up: Atlanta—now EchoPark Speedway—under the lights Saturday night, where Joey Logano is the defending winner. And if Pocono taught us anything? Expect the unexpected. Or at least expect brake failures, fuel gambles, and enough chaos to keep the scriptwriters of those soap operas green with envy.
RACE RESULTS
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.