Chase Briscoe Becomes Eighth Driver to Win Back-To-Back Southern 500s

If you felt that the win in last year's Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway was a fluke for Chase Briscoe, the driver shut down any of that talk on Sunday night as he was dominant on his path to a second consecutive win in arguably NASCAR's toughest crown jewel event.

Race Results: Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington

"So cool to win two Southern 500s in a row," Briscoe said in his post-race interview on USA Network. "This is my favorite race of the year. Just because you race fans, every time we come here the place is sold out, the atmosphere here is like nowhere else. A great way to start our Playoffs. That was a lot of fun."

Briscoe led a jaw-dropping 309 laps in the 367-lap event, and he won Stages 1 and 2 on his path to the victory in the opening race of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, which will automatically advance him into the Round of 12 of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.

While he was happy to automatically lock in his place in the Round of 12, Briscoe was far more excited about the Playoff Points he gained on the night.

"Yeah, it's nice. I mean, truthfully, all week and especially today, like I never, even yesterday, I never once even thought about the Playoffs," Briscoe said. "Because truthfully, the Round of 16, like with our speed, if we just go out and run halfway decent, we should make it. So, I tried to not think about the Playoffs at all. Today, or yesterday, or throughout the weekend. It's definitely nice to start off and be able to lock our way into the Round of 12, but I'm way more excited for seven more Playoff Points for the next couple of rounds. That's something we were at a pretty big deficit at. And to add seven, that's a huge deal going forward."

The win on Sunday night makes Briscoe only the eighth driver in history to win back-to-back Southern 500s. The 30-year-old joins Herb Thomas (1954, '55), Bobby Allison (1971, '72), Cale Yarborough (1973, '74), David Pearson (1976, '77), Dale Earnhardt (1989, '90), Jeff Gordon (1995-1998), and Greg Biffle (2005, '06). Joseph Srigley was the first to unearth this stat.

While he put on an old-fashioned butt-whoopin' on Sunday night, Briscoe had to hold off two hard-charging competitors, Tyler Reddick and Erik Jones, in the closing laps. He was able to do just that as he crossed the finish line ahead of Reddick by a margin of victory of 0.408 seconds.

While Reddick closed in, Briscoe never really felt he was in danger of Reddick being in range to pull off a dive-bomb move for the win.

"Yes and no, because I knew that it was probably not going to work," Briscoe said. "If you aren't on the wall at the end of the run, I mean, it is like ice. So, I knew I just couldn't let him somehow get outside me or mess up [Turns] 1 and 2 so bad where we were side-by-side enough where he would slide me."

Briscoe continued, "He tried it with 3 or 4 [laps] to go, and whenever he did that, it didn't work out. That's when I knew that even a dive bomb at the end was probably out of the question unless he was extremely close."

Briscoe also had an early-race scare with a voltage issue, but the issue corrected itself after Briscoe was told to cycle his alternator.

Reddick, who has yet to win a race this season, came home second, which allowed him to have a solid start to his Playoff run. The Championship 4 contender from a season ago, was one of just four Playoff contenders, who scored top-10 finishes on the night.

He was happy to get his Playoffs started off on the right foot, but Reddick was frustrated to see another opportunity at a win at Darlington slip through his grasp.

"[Briscoe] could fire off a whole lot better. I think that was the difference tonight," Reddick explained. "I could get close. Yeah, I know we had a long run there, but it just unfortunately seemed like the last run, the balance wasn't quite as good as it has been the rest of the night on the long run. All-in-all, a really solid night for points in the Playoffs. Really want to win here. It's frustrating to finish second, going for it, like I did last spring, doing the wrong thing, ending our day, and finishing 36th. I wish I could have been just a little bit closer. When I dove off in there, I was already sideways. I learned from last spring that that doesn't work. Yeah, a good solid day, but hopefully one day we'll win here at Darlington.”

Behind Reddick were the LEGACY MOTOR CLUB teammates Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek, who each looked like they'd have a chance to break through for a victory at points in the night, but ultimately settled for third and fourth-place results respectively.

AJ Allmendinger was another non-Playoff driver, who impressed on Sunday night as he finished in the fifth position behind the wheel of the No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet.

Bubba Wallace, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Carson Hocevar, and Chris Buescher rounded out the top-10 finishers in the event.

It was an up-and-down night for Playoff contenders, and Josh Berry had the roughest night of all of the contenders. Berry started the weekend off with such promise, and he started from the third position, but on the opening lap of the race, he went for a spin in Turns 1 and 2, and severely damaged his No. 21 car.

Berry said the car bottomed out numerous times on the opening lap, which caused him to lose control.

"It bottomed out like five or six times, I don't know. I saw a video of it from the 1 car while they were fixing it, and you could see it throwing up smoke," Berry explained. "Not sure what happened there, if we missed something, but yeah, you just can't drive these things when they're hitting the track that hard. Especially on the first lap when you're not expecting it."

He would return to the race, but would finish dead-last in 38th, and was 128 laps off the pace at the time of the checkered flag.

Here are where the 16 NASCAR Cup Series Playoff contenders finished in Sunday's Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington:

Finish	Car	Driver
1	19	Chase Briscoe
2	45	Tyler Reddick
6	23	Bubba Wallace
7	11	Denny Hamlin
11	1	Ross Chastain
12	2	Austin Cindric
17	9	Chase Elliott
18	12	Ryan Blaney
19	5	Kyle Larson
20	22	Joey Logano
21	24	William Byron
23	3	Austin Dillon
29	20	Christopher Bell
31	48	Alex Bowman
32	88	Shane van Gisbergen
38	21	Josh Berry

Heading out of the opening race of the three-race Round of 16 of the Playoffs, Shane van Gisbergen finds himself the 12th and final driver ahead of the Playoffs cutline. SVG holds a three-point advantage over defending NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano for the final slot inside the top-12 of the standings.

Austin Dillon sits eight points below the cutline, while Josh Berry is 19 points outside, and Alex Bowman is in the basement of the standings, 19 points below the cutline.

Next up for the NASCAR Cup Series is the Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway, which is set for Sunday, September 7. That race will be televised on USA Network, and coverage will kick off at 3:00 PM ET. The Motor Racing Network (MRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of the race.

*This story will be updated

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