Briscoe Bumps Buescher and Bubba
- alexjarvis83
- Sep 2, 2024
- 4 min read

Southern 500: Chase Briscoe won his first Southern 500 on Sunday evening, coming in clutch and locking himself into the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. Briscoe's second career win came at arguably the most important time for his career and for the folks of Stewart-Haas Racing. Briscoe, who his headed to the 19 Joe Gibbs Racing car, has not had much going for him this year, and while I believe he will be good fit and successful at JGR, he has not demonstrably proved that this year. He did Sunday. evening. And for the fine folks of SHR, their final year in existence has been marred by bad luck and mediocrity. But not Sunday evening. Two cars (Briscoe and Berry) were solidly top-10 all night until Berry's wreck late, and Gragson and Preece scratched and clawed around 15th all night. But it was Briscoe who put the hopes and dreams and all the hard work of that organization on his back and won their way into the 2024 Playoffs. A storybook send off for a championship winning organization.
And on the flip side: Briscoe's win knocks both Chris Buescher and Bubba Wallace out of the playoffs - both drivers were in position throughout the night to be in, but their luck ran out in the waning laps as Briscoe powered to the lead on a ballsy three wide pass for the lead, and eventually, the win. Both unlucky drivers will surely look back at a multitude of missed changes throughout the season that left them out of the playoffs. None likely more bitter than Buescher who saw his somewhat secure position fade away with two new winners who retained playoff eligibility in the last two weeks, and his heartbreaking losses at Darlington and Kansas in May of this year. And it is likely that the Kansas loss of .001 seconds will forever be painfully etched into his mind when recapping his 2024 campaign. Bubba no doubt will be bummed to with how his regular season ended. Multiple times throughout the year he was caught up in other's incidents, backfiring pit strategy, or just flat out missing on performing well or finishing off races he and the 23 team no doubt could have and should have done better. With that said, both drivers have nothing to be ashamed of as far as performance goes. Buescher had a respectable season, but a fall off from 2023. And Bubba had arguably the best regular season of his career, but just missed off on capitalizing a few times throughout the first 26 races. I have no doubt both will continue to perform at high levels to finish off the season, and would not be shocked to see them in victory lane.
The race itself was compelling - Darlington often is - with strategy, drivers struggling, changing track conditions, and toss in a few season altering storylines there was enough at play to keep your attention. Things got started early with Truex Jr getting loose, over-correcting and piledriving Blaney into the turn two wall. At this point, I assumed we were in for an all hell breaks loose kind of race. But then, the on-track action ratcheted down and Kyle Larson began his domination of the race. Thank goodness for the storylines and strategy play at hand or else this race would have been a snooze fest the second Larson took the lead. And while the race was shaping up to be compelling via strategy and to see how things panned out between Buescher and Bubba, but Carson Hocevar had other plans.
The second Hocevar spun out, then subsequently smacked the wall laps later, I knew this race was not going to go quietly. And quietly it did not go. The late race cautions that ensued after Hocevar's initial spin flipped the race on its head and simply added to the intensity, and briefly, to the strategy of the finish. The late race cautions eventually played out perfectly for Chase Briscoe - that and his power move to take the lead - and for Kyle Busch, who was making a made charge to the lead but yet again fell short of snagging a win. It paid unfortunate dividends for Larson, Denny Hamlin, Buescher, Bubba, and a few others as their shots at winning and/or making the playoffs evaporated over the last 30-ish laps.
Briscoe, who was the only driver who could even briefly challenge Larson at most points throughout the race, took advantage of the race being mixed up and took the win. Briscoe drove all night like a man possessed by the racing gods. It was a masterful performance of needing to win, wanting it more than anyone, flawless race craft and strategy, racing at one of his favorite and better tracks, and power moves that kept him on edge all night, but paid off with a trip to victory lane. Briscoe's performance is one for the ages regardless of what happens the rest of the season. Briscoe did what he needed to do, at the last possible chance, to deliver an important and feel good win for all Briscoe fans and all Stewart-Haas Racing fans.
We now head into the Cup Series playoffs and begin the final descent into the Xfinity Series regular season as the NASCAR world arrives at Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend. With the Truck Series off again the Xfinity Series kicks off the on-track action this weekend on Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m. EST with the Focused Health 250 on USA. The Cup Series launches their round of 16 on Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. EST with the Quaker State 400 Available at Walmart on USA. If Atlanta earlier this season is any indication, we are in for some of the best racing of the season yet again this weekend.
Atlanta Picks:
Cup = William Byron
Xfinity = Jesse Love
Trucks = Off
Header Photo: Meg Oliphant/Getty Images
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