Briscoe’s walk-off win, Reddick takes regular season championship

Chase Briscoe’s walk-off win in Sunday night’s Cook Out Southern 500, cooked the hopes of three competitors.

Briscoe’s victory ended a 73-race winless streak for Stewart-Haas Racing and thwarted Kyle Larson, who had dominated the race by leading 263 of 367 laps and winning the first two stages. Despite his strong performance, Larson finished fourth and narrowly lost the NASCAR Cup Series regular-season title to Tyler Reddick by just one point.

This win marked Briscoe’s second career victory, which effectively knocked Bubba Wallace and Chris Buescher out of playoff contention. Buescher put up a valiant effort, finishing sixth, but missed the final playoff spot on points to Ty Gibbs and Martin Truex Jr. In post-race interviews, Buescher was clearly stunned and dejected, finding it difficult to gather his words as he considered how many wins had slipped through his hands throughout the season due to late race incidents. Conversely, Wallace’s post-race interview depicted disappointment but acceptance and pride at what the #23 team had managed to accomplish this season. In contrast to his post-Daytona interview, this was a much more refined response from Wallace.

“For all 320 employees, everybody, to be able to race for a championship in their final year, man, unbelievable,” Briscoe said. “This group, the day that we found out that the team wasn’t going to exist anymore, we went over to the shop floor, we all looked at each other and said, ‘We’re in this till the end. We’re not going to give this up.’

“We kept saying all week we got one bullet left in the chamber. That bullet hit.”

Ross Chastain was also eliminated from playoff contention but played a significant role in the race’s outcome. During the sixth caution caused by Carson Hocevar’s wreck, Chastain stayed on the track while other leading cars pitted for fresh tires on Lap 338.

On Lap 342, as Larson battled Chastain for the lead in Turn 3, Briscoe made a decisive move to the bottom of the track, overtaking Ty Gibbs, Larson, and Chastain to seize the lead.

Despite intense pressure from Kyle Busch during the final 17 laps, Briscoe held onto the top spot. Busch, who restarted on Lap 351 from the fourth row as the first car on new tires, quickly passed everyone except Briscoe.

“When I made it through a few of those guys right there on the start, I thought we had a shot to get there,” Busch said. “I think I just needed him to have maybe three or four more lap older tires for me to be able to break through the wake.”

Tyler Reddick battled severe nausea throughout the race that caused him to throw up in the car. Pit stops included dry crackers and fluids laced with anti-nausea meds. Yet despite his illness, he managed to persevere over the 500 miles. He took fresh tires during the final caution on Lap 346, gained two spots after the restart, and finished 10th, which was enough to edge out Larson for the regular-season championship and earn the 15 playoff bonus points.

“The car was really, really strong right from the get-go,” Reddick said. “It was tough, man, when we just were bleeding points to the 5 (Larson) in the middle of the race. I was trying to think of what I needed to do to go faster.”

Despite Reddick’s win, Larson will enter next Sunday’s playoff race at Atlanta Motor Speedway as the No. 1 seed, holding 40 playoff points.

Disaster struck early for one playoff contender on Lap 3 when Martin Truex Jr.’s Toyota broke loose during an attempted pass of William Byron. Truex’s Camry collided with the outside wall, collecting Ryan Blaney’s Ford in the process.

Truex entered the race 58 points above the playoff cut line, seemingly secure in his postseason spot. However, the early crash ended his race in 36th place, earning him just one point.

“Yeah, it was all my fault, all my doing. I got a run on the 24 (Byron) and went to the inside and thought everything was going fine, and the car just took off and I ran into him,” Truex said.

Playoff driver Christopher Bell finished third, followed by Larson and Chastain. Buescher, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Corey LaJoie, and Reddick rounded out the top 10.

Note: Post-race inspection in the NASCAR Cup Series garage was completed without issue, confirming Briscoe as the race winner. The Nos. 51 and 71 cars will be sent to the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina, for further inspection.