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Photo credit: Nigel Kinrade Photography
Racing

Southern 500: Chase Briscoe dominates in career performance

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DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Chase Briscoe is a two-time crown jewel winner, and he now has a secure spot in the Round of 12 after a dominant performance at Darlington Raceway.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver led a career-best 309 laps and he swept the stage wins. This locked up a crucial 60 points and put him in rare company. Briscoe became the first back-to-back Southern 500 winner since Greg Biffle in 2005-06, and he became the first driver to lead more than 300 laps in the crown jewel race since Bobby Allison in 1971.

MORE: Chase Briscoe dominates Southern 500, full results

"So cool to win two Southern 500s in a row," Briscoe said. "This is my favorite race of the year. Just because you race fans, every time we come here the place is sold out, the atmosphere here is like nowhere else.

"A great way to start our Playoffs. That was a lot of fun."

Reddick crossed the finish line in second place in a performance he needed after regular-season struggles. He locked up 18 stage points while steadily running inside the top five all race long. He also achieved this after sustaining some damage in a Lap 1 incident.

"Oh, I had zero faith," Reddick said about his dive bomb into Turns 3 and 4 on the last lap of the race. "Well, last year in the spring, I gave it my best effort. It didn't stick, and that time it didn't stick either. It's just a pretty similar story.

"Last spring with (Chris) Buescher and Briscoe, this time I remembered what happened in the spring. I was able to get ahead of it just a little sooner and not wipe out Chase."

The rest of the top five included Erik Jones, John Hunter Nemechek, and AJ Allmendinger. This marked the third top-four sweep in Toyota's history, and the first since fall Bristol in 2017.

Miscues became the theme for several playoff teams, both on pit road and on the track. This began with the opening lap as Josh Berry got loose and spun. He tagged Reddick before spinning toward the inside wall. Reddick made slight contact with the outside wall but kept the No. 45 moving in the right direction.

This allowed Reddick to keep racing instead of heading down pit road. Berry did not have the same luck. He had to go to the garage with significant steering issues, and he lost more than 120 laps in the process. This ensured he would finish last at the South Carolina track.

"It's kind of hard to even really know, but it the car bottomed out five or six times and just wrecked," Berry said after the race. "It was definitely unexpected. We didn't really fight that too bad in practice.

"I saw a replay of it when I was sitting in the car while they were fixing it from the 1, and you could tell that it bottomed out four or five times and you can't save them when they're like that."

Some of the biggest issues involved Alex Bowman. He made an early pit stop after a stack up on the opening lap. This put him outside of the top 30. He could not gain any ground due to an ill-handling car. Yet, this paled in comparison to the biggest issue.

Bowman made a green flag pit stop as the end of stage 1 approached. He remained in his stall for 40 seconds. Both air guns disconnected from the pit box, so the team had to spend precious time getting everything hooked up once again. This miscue dropped Bowman two laps behind the leaders.

The issues continued with Denny Hamlin, who had a slow stop in stage 2 due to an issue on the right-rear. The team had to jack the car up twice. He then stalled the No. 11 exiting his pit box while dealing with a soft clutch.

William Byron, the regular-season champion, had to back up in his pit stall in stage 2 to tighten a loose wheel. Bubba Wallace had a slow pit stop under the same caution period, as did Austin Dillon.

Christopher Bell sustained significant splitter damage exiting his pit stall. He hit Carson Hocevar and spun him on pit road. This also blocked Ryan Blaney in his pit stall. Blaney then spun from 13th later in the stage. He checked up to avoid Kyle Busch but Dillon hit him from behind.

Blaney had to take an extra trip down pit road, which dropped him to 28th in the running order. He then fell to 30th as the end of stage 2 approached.

Wallace and Hamlin recovered and finished sixth and seventh, respectively. The rest of the playoff drivers involved in issues were not able to replicate this.

Ten of the playoff drivers finished outside the top 15. This included Chase Elliott (17th), Blaney (18th), Kyle Larson (19th), Joey Logano (20th), Byron (21st), Dillon (23rd), Bell (29th), Bowman (31st), Shane van Gisbergen (32nd), and Berry (38th).