NASCAR: Chase Briscoe qualifies for the playoffs with a Southern 500 win

Chase Briscoe won his way into the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs on Sunday night.

Briscoe held off Kyle Busch to win the Southern 500 and score his second playoff berth with an incredible drive. Busch pressured Briscoe over the final 15 laps of the race but Briscoe was nearly flawless and kept the two-time Cup Series champion at bay.

Briscoe’s win was no fluke. He had one of the fastest cars all night and put it to good use with an incredible pass for the lead. Look at this three-wide move before the final caution that ended up winning him the race.

Briscoe is the 14th driver to qualify for the playoffs via a win. Martin Truex Jr. and Ty Gibbs took the final two spots via their place in the points standings as Chris Buescher and Bubba Wallace missed out. So does Busch, who needed to beat Briscoe to qualify for the playoffs.

“This night just literally went perfect,” Briscoe said after the race.

The full playoff field includes: Tyler Reddick, Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Christopher Bell, William Byron, Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Gibbs, Truex, Alex Bowman, Joey Logano, Briscoe, Daniel Suarez, Austin Cindric and Harrison Burton.

Reddick won the regular-season title thanks to a pit stop during the final caution. The fresh tires allowed him to make up four points on Larson and win the regular-season title by a single point.

Stewart-Haas Racing is shutting down

Briscoe’s victory comes as Stewart-Haas Racing is closing its doors at the end of the season. Over 300 employees are losing their jobs as the four-car team ceases operations and it’s hard to overstate how difficult it is for a team to have success when its employees know they need new jobs at the end of the season.

Briscoe already has a new gig for 2025. He has been announced as Truex’s replacement at Joe Gibbs Racing as the 2017 champion is retiring at the end of the season. His drive on Sunday night showed why he can be one of the best drivers in the Cup Series — especially if he’s in a top-tier car.

SHR hasn’t been a top-tier team recently. And Briscoe suffered for it in 2023. After making the playoffs in 2022 thanks to a win at Phoenix, Briscoe had a rough year a season ago. He finished 30th in the standings thanks to a massive points penalty for illegal car modifications early in the year.

This season he entered Sunday night’s regular-season finale in 18th place and best among SHR’s drivers. With Kevin Harvick retired and in the Fox broadcast booth, Briscoe was the team’s only driver in the top 20 in the points standings. And he’s now the team’s only playoff representative.

Truex sweats it out

Truex entered the Southern 500 as a virtual lock to make the playoffs even though he hadn’t scored a win in the first 25 races of the season. Truex’s lead over the playoff cut line stood at 58 points before the race and he needed nearly all of them after an early crash.

Truex blamed himself for the incident as he tried to go to the inside of William Byron and simply lost control. As Truex crashed he took out Blaney too.

Truex made the playoffs by just six points over Buescher, the first driver out of the postseason. Wallace challenged Buescher for what could have been the last spot in the playoffs before Briscoe’s win, but his playoff chances disappeared in a late crash that started ahead of him when Josh Berry slid into Ty Gibbs.