Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe roared to victory in overtime Sunday in the NASCAR Cup Series’ Round of 8 middle playoff race, the YellaWood 500, at Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, Ala.
The No. 19 driver moved below leader Bubba Wallace on the backstretch and beat Todd Gilliland by 0.145 seconds for his third win.
That secured the 30-year-old Briscoe’s first career appearance in the Championship 4 race weekend in Phoenix in two weeks, where he will be joined by teammate Denny Hamlin and two other title-chasers to be determined in the round’s Sunday finale at the short track in Martinsville.
Ty Gibbs finished third, and Wallace and Cole Custer rounded out the top five finishers.
Featuring a 40-car field, the 34th race of the season at the high-banked superspeedway started rather tame and remained that way as polesitter Michael McDowell led them and pit stops began on Lap 43.
With AJ Allmendinger up front and in the closing circuits of 60-lap Stage 1, the race’s first caution flew after an eight-car incident on the backstretch started by Erik Jones spinning second-place driver Noah Gragson.
The resulting melee collected Chase Elliott, who spun to the bottom and whose No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was struck by Austin Dillon’s No. 3.
Gibbs won the short shootout to end the segment. Tyler Reddick, John Hunter Nemechek, Ryan Blaney and Wallace followed behind for the bonus points.
With about 70 laps left, Shane van Gisbergen spun his No. 88 on pit road and became stuck in the wet infield grass. The third caution somehow did not involve any of the 17 cars that came to pit road.
On the final lap of Stage 2, Kyle Larson’s No. 5 Chevrolet pulled up beside Briscoe’s No. 19 Toyota, but Briscoe held off the Hendrick Motorsports driver. Carson Hocevar, William Byron and Christopher Bell were right behind.
With 50 laps left, Joey Logano, Blaney, Brad Keselowski, Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece paced a five-car Ford front, but pit stops began and shook up the field for the run to the end.
On Lap 186, one circuit before the white flag, Byron got a push, bumped leader Chris Buescher and sent the No. 17 Ford down the backstretch apron and into the wall for the sixth caution.
