What a difference a year makes.
Last season, Chase Briscoe was a man without a future — a driver in need of a home who stunned everyone by winning the Southern 500 and dragging his lame-duck team into NASCAR’s Playoffs. Fast-forward to this year and Briscoe isn’t just on the guest list, he’s kicking the front door down. He’s got a new home, a real seat at the table, and after Sunday night at Darlington he made it clear: he’s not just in the Playoffs, he’s here to ruin people’s seasons.
Briscoe took his second consecutive Southern 500 and did it with the sort of dominance you rarely see anymore. He didn’t just win — he humiliated the rest of the field, sweeping both stages and leading 309 laps, more than anyone has managed in a 500-mile race here since 1986.
“Yeah, man, there at the end, that was way harder than it needed to be,” Briscoe said. “Man, just incredible, Bass Pro Shops. As a fan, I’ve watched Martin dominate a lot of races, and it was fun to be behind the wheel of it.”
Of course, because this is Darlington, the race wasn’t going to simply gift-wrap itself. Seven cautions, shredded tires, and the occasional crash kept things interesting, before the final 48-lap green-flag run turned into a duel between Briscoe and Tyler Reddick.
Reddick, who very nearly wrote himself out of the story on lap one, clawed back through the chaos and stalked Briscoe in the closing laps like a coyote waiting for a stumble. With under 20 to go, perfection was the only thing keeping Briscoe in front. On the final lap Reddick threw a desperate dive-bomb into Turn 3, got to Briscoe’s bumper, and still came up short. Briscoe crossed the line .408 seconds clear, and with it slammed the door on anyone questioning his title credentials.
“I wish I could have been just a little bit closer,” Reddick said. “When I dove off in there, I was already sideways. I learned from last spring that that doesn’t work. Yeah, a good solid day, but hopefully one day we’ll win here at Darlington.”
Behind them, Erik Jones — already a two-time Southern 500 winner — gave Reddick fits before settling for third, with John Hunter Nemechek and AJ Allmendinger rounding out the top five.
“I felt like we were probably a little bit better than both of them,” Jones said. “I couldn’t get the run. I thought I had the 45 (Reddick) there with maybe four or five to go. There was a little hole on the top. He squeezed up and filled it. Racing for the win.”
The opening act had all the subtlety of a fireworks show. Before the first lap was complete, Josh Berry — making his Playoff debut — spun from third and destroyed his Wood Brothers Ford against the wall, nearly wiping out Reddick in the process. Berry limped back from the garage 128 laps down, officially last, and probably wondering what cruel NASCAR god he angered.
As the track chewed through tires like an overweight tourist at a Vegas buffet, green-flag pit cycles briefly put Bubba Wallace, Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, Shane van Gisbergen, and even non-Playoff driver Nemechek out front. But when the first stage ended, there was Briscoe, reminding everyone who owned the place.
Stage 2 was more of the same. Polesitter Denny Hamlin muscled his way to the lead, only for Briscoe to take it right back a lap later. Spinning cars, pit road blunders, and a fiery exit for Derek Kraus all tried to upset the rhythm, but none of it stopped Briscoe.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Playoff field looked like they’d been dropped into a demolition derby. Hamlin’s crew broke an air gun. Bell collided with Carson Hocevar on pit road. Alex Bowman’s night was a carnival of disasters. When the dust cleared, only four Playoff drivers even cracked the top ten: Briscoe, Reddick, Wallace (sixth), and Hamlin (seventh).
The rest? Forgettable at best, disastrous at worst. Kyle Larson limped home 19th. Joey Logano 20th. William Byron 21st. Bell 29th. Bowman 31st. Shane van Gisbergen 32nd. If this was supposed to be the grand Playoff kickoff, half the field looked like they didn’t get the invitation.
Next stop: St. Louis, where Austin Cindric is the defending champ. Briscoe, however, may already be the man everyone else is chasing.
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.
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