For the second straight week, a brand new winner shook up the NASCAR playoff image.
After a wild three-wide transfer with 25 laps to go, Chase Briscoe was capable of maintain off the sector — together with a hard-charging Kyle Busch — to win the 2024 Southern 500 and make the 2024 NASCAR Cup Sequence playoffs.
2024 would be the second time in Briscoe’s four-year profession that he’ll race within the playoffs, as his Phoenix win in 2022 clinched him a spot in that 12 months’s postseason.
On the flip aspect of the battle for the win was two-time Cup Sequence champion Kyle Busch, who, like Briscoe, wanted a win to make the playoff subject. After a runner-up end at Daytona one week in the past, it appeared like Busch may put his disappointing 2024 marketing campaign behind him if he may discover a means round Briscoe.
Nonetheless, it wasn’t meant to be.
Nor was it meant to be for Chris Buescher, who had his coronary heart damaged at Darlington for the second time in 2024.
“We felt like we did what we wanted to do right this moment,” Buescher instructed NBC Sports activities. “Did not fairly get it carried out once more, now we’re on the surface trying in. Sadly, it is simply the system we’re all taking part in in. We had such a terrific 12 months. We outran so many of those vehicles which are going to get to compete for a championship, however that is the system. We did not work it proper.”
Buescher’s important competitor for the ultimate playoff spot getting into Sunday’s race was Bubba Wallace, who received the pole and led early earlier than falling off because the race went alongside. A slew of late cautions had Wallace knocking on the door to probably knock Buescher out, however a crash proper in entrance of the No. 23 doomed Wallace’s playoff probabilities, even with out Briscoe’s win.
Regardless of a broken automotive, Wallace clawed his technique to a Sixteenth-place end that simply wasn’t fairly adequate for a second consecutive playoff berth.
“We simply obtained behind on changes,” Wallace instructed NBC Sports activities. “We obtained again in visitors, a spot we hadn’t been in all day, and obtained caught up in another person’s mess. Hats off to the 14.”
“I believed I did one thing yesterday,” Wallace added, referring to his blazing quick pole lap on Saturday. “They one-upped us right this moment and stood up when it was recreation time.”
Wallace’s unlucky finish to the common season was watched in particular person by 23XI Racing co-owner and NBA legend Michael Jordan, who nervously watched the crown jewel race within the No. 23 staff’s pit stall.
The 2024 NASCAR Cup Sequence playoffs will start Sept. 8 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
