Briscoe Goes Back-to-Back, Earns Momentous Charlotte Win!
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Chase Briscoe earned a big time win Sunday, October 11, as he earned his third win of the season after winning the Bank of America 400! The race served as the sixth race of the Chase, and was the first time since 2017 where the NASCAR Cup Series ran the oval configuration twice in the same season. The race saw many parallels to the Coca-Cola 600 in May, but the story ended up with a different outcome, as Briscoe not only won, but cut the points deficit to Kyle Larson down to 65 points.
HOW IT HAPPENED:
After remnants of Hurricane Isaias broke up the east coast Saturday, both practice and qualifying were rained out for the fourth time in six weekend to begin the Chase. Via the metric, Kyle Larson earned the pole with Briscoe starting to his outside.
Larson was the car to beat in stage one, and seemed like he was on his way to yet another top five finish in stage two, but as the race went on similar to May, the strength of Joe Gibbs Racing was simply too much for Larson to overcome.
In stage two, Larson got shuffled back early and was able to rebound to a fourth-place finish in the stage, but it was Christopher Bell who showed his hand as the driver with the elite car as he won stage two. As for his teammate Denny Hamlin, it has been a tough chase for the Regular Season Champion to this point, but Hamlin for the second time in the Chase beat Larson in a stage with a 3rd place result.
As for Briscoe, after finishing 2nd in stage one, Chase finished stage two in 7th position. Briscoe's charge to the front did not come until stage three with a lot of help coming from his pit crew.
To open up the closing stage it was Ryan Blaney who won the race off pit road, but he would not hold the lead for long, as Christopher Bell made a bold three wide move in the bottom of turns 3-4 to go from third to first on the opening lap.
Bell led all the way until cars hit pit road on lap 207 after Gray Gaulding brought out the caution after contact with Tyler Reddick.
It was at this stop where Chase Briscoe prevailed as his team won the race off pit road for the lap 211 restart with Christopher Bell to his outside.
Once the field took the green flag, it seemed almost inevitable that Bell was going to run down Briscoe as it was the longest green flag run of the day of 56 laps, and no one could beat the #20's long run speed.
But instead, Chase Briscoe was poised. Early in the run Bell got to his bumper, but couldn't find momentum to pass, as Briscoe managed the dirty air. Then there was a period where Bell started getting loose causing him to lose big time.
On lap 224, Chase Briscoe's lead was only .469 over his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate. On lap 243, Chase Briscoe to everyone's surprise would open his lead to 2.241 seconds.
But as it turned out the race win would need to be earned from Briscoe, as things were on the cusp of unraveling in a matter of moments. On lap 264, Briscoe caught lap traffic and saw his lead shrink to 1.3 seconds.
The issue for Briscoe though wasn't passing the traffic, but rather a bigger issue. His right front tire was slowly beginning to unravel, and he was on the cusp of cutting down a right front.
On the white flag, Christopher Bell would get one shot to beat his teammate as he had a huge run down the backstretch heading into turn three. Briscoe ran the top line, while Bell ran the bottom. Coming out of turn four, Bell turned his over four tenth deficit to a side-by-side battle where both he and Briscoe made contact sending both cars sideways.
But Briscoe was able to keep his foot on the gas and keep the momentum up, as he barely edged off Bell via a drag race to the line by .029. Chase Briscoe won his 3rd race of 2026, matching a career high!
OTHER NOTES:
While Chase Briscoe was the big winner with his 68-point day, there were some big losers to points leader Kyle Larson. The first two Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin. Unlike Hamlin, while Bell gained on Larson, his dominant performance only netted him a four-point gain, causing him to head to Phoenix -51 points.
That means to win the championship, Bell would need bad luck for Larson, as well as a net average of gaining 13 points per race. Had Bell won the race, that number would have been cut down to about 8 points, as he would only by -31 off the lead.
As for Hamlin, he got things back on track with a 5th place finish, his second top five in the Chase. The problem for Hamlin, he got penalized early, lost out on stage points in stage one, and despite beating Larson with a 5th, lost a total of nine points to the #5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet. Denny Hamlin leaves Charlotte still second in points, but now -49 off the lead.
Lastly, the race saw big blows for two championship competitors, that being Ty Gibbs and Joey Logano. For Gibbs, it was a broken toe link in the early laps, as a stack up after the lap 35 competition caution caused him to crash and lose numerous laps. Ty Gibbs finished 34th and fell to 9th in the standings -156 points behind Kyle Larson.
As for Joey Logano, he received damage on his left front from Gibbs during the stack up causing him to pit and lose out on stage points early. Logano did not earn stage points in either stage, but redeemed his night for a 9th place effort. For Logano though, the net of a redeeming day was losing 21 points to Kyle Larson causing him to leave Charlotte -92 points off the championship lead.
It is seemingly now a four-horse race to decide a champion over the stretch of the final four races.
UP NEXT:
The NASCAR Cup Series will head to Phoenix Raceway for the second and final time in 2026. Earlier in the season it was Ryan Blaney who had a statement victory, and it is assumed Penske Racing will remain the favorite to win at the somewhat flat style oval with a dogleg. The Freeway Insurance 500 is slated for a 3:00 P.M. ET start time and coverage of the race can be found on USA and MRN.
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