Chase Briscoe and Kyle Busch, each of whom have been in a must-win place to make the Cup Collection playoffs, battled it out till the bitter finish. Briscoe emerged victorious — not the first time he is outdueled Busch at Darlington — to make sure Stewart-Haas Racing can have a driver competing for the title in its remaining season.
Much more importantly, although, Briscoe’s win proved it is doable for NASCAR to have a Recreation 7 second with out manufacturing drama.
Briscoe initially took the lead with a wild move to go from fourth to first on a late restart, passing Kyle Larson, Ty Gibbs and Ross Chastain after Larson had dominated the race.
Chastain, who was in his personal must-win scenario, had taken of venture by staying out below a warning whereas everybody else pitted, after which an additional caution allowed Busch to return in for contemporary tires in an try and run down Briscoe.
It was the right stability of high-stakes pleasure with out the race devolving right into a circus present, which has been the case so usually in 2024. The Southern 500 is without doubt one of the few remaining 500-mile (or larger) occasions on the Cup Collection calendar, and is traditionally an endurance check of each man and machine in which there’s a gradual, methodical buildup to an epic climax.
That was on good show Sunday night time, and the added issue of the playoff implications was simply the icing on the cake as Briscoe accomplished maybe the drive of his life.
Sadly, anytime an amazing story unfolds for one competitor, there are additionally these on the improper finish of the narrative. This time, that occurs to be Busch, who misses the playoffs for the primary time since 2012.
Moreover, Chris Buescher, Bubba Wallace and Chastain — all of whom got here into the race considering they have been battling for the ultimate spot — will probably be neglected due to Briscoe’s win. All had good alternatives to seek out victory lane all year long, however the breaks simply did not go their approach.
Moreover on Sunday, Tyler Reddick claimed the regular-season championship and a reward of 15 bonus factors in the direction of the playoffs, beating Larson by precisely one level so as to take action. Reddick could not have received the race, however he had one of the crucial spectacular drives of the night time as he fought to a Tenth-place end whereas battling a extreme abdomen bug.
Larson has been the dominant driver of the yr, but when dropping out on these additional factors comes again to chew him, there are a number of missed alternatives he’ll look again on with this race being a major instance.
All of it simply goes to indicate how aggressive the Cup Collection is, the place each single second makes a distinction. And, as Sunday night time proved, generally these moments can happen with out being produced by synthetic gimmicks.
