How Chase Briscoe Nearly Pulled off NASCAR Improbable at Martinsville

• Chase Briscoe needed a win on Sunday to qualify for the NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 at Phoenix.

• Briscoe came into Martinsville Speedway as the lowest driver in the points among the eight contenders.

• He led with five laps to go on Sunday before his tires let go, and Chistopher Bell went on to the win.

Chase Briscoe nearly pulled it off. The Stewart-Haas Racing driver knew he would need nothing short of a win to make it into NASCAR’s Championship 4, and he came just 4 laps short of doing just that.

Briscoe came into Martinsville Speedway as the lowest driver in the points among the eight contenders but was fast in practice and qualifying on Saturday an got the attention of many including polesitter and defending Cup series champion Kyle Larson, who had been eliminated at Charlotte.

“He’s definitely one of the most aggressive drivers in the field,” Larson said. “And then you throw in the fact that he has to win to advance. I’m sure if he’s anywhere near the front of the field at the end, it’s going to get wild. We’ll see... hopefully I’m in front of it or in front of him and can avoid any issues. He could get to the lead and walk away with this thing too. That’s how good I thought his car looked in practice.”

Starting third, Briscoe indeed did look good Sunday. He ran inside the top five much of the early laps and finished fifth in Stage 1. But during the pit stops at the break, he left his pit stall with the fuel can still attached to his Ford. The can dropped out, but it was outside his pit box, and NASCAR penalized the team for removing equipment. He was forced to drop to the tail of the longest line, and it appeared that any hope for a race win was over.

He did get one final chance, however.

With 32 laps to go when the race’s sixth and final caution came out for Landon Cassill spinning. The lead group pitted but Briscoe, who had lost a lap but earned it back, was running in eighth and stayed out along with Cole Custer.

Both drivers were on older tires, but Briscoe and his crew were aware that his only shot was winning and staying out gave him the lead, and hope.

The restart came with 24 laps to go, and though Custer soon fell victim to the newer tires behind him, Briscoe staged a noble effort holding off first Brad Keselowski then Christopher Bell.

With four to go, Briscoe’s older tires gave out, Bell passed and went on to win. Briscoe had to settle for ninth, and was eliminated from the Playoffs along with Denny Hamlin, William Byron and Ryan Blaney.

“Yeah, that was kind of the only play I felt like we really had,” Briscoe said. “I was honestly surprised nobody else stayed out in front of me. We couldn’t really pass all day long, so we knew if we restarted eighth, where I think we were running, we probably would have run seventh or eighth. I thought it was gonna work for a second. I thought if the race was 10 less laps I was probably gonna win, but I just fell off a cliff really hard there at the end. It’s unfortunate, but I had a shot. “

Briscoe said the penalty really put them in a bad spot.

“It was really hard to pass,” he said. “Had to scrap and claw position by position and it took us a really long time to get back up there, but I thought our car was pretty good towards the end. It would have been nice to be on even tires, for sure. I felt like we had a car capable of running up front and battling for the win, but that was really the only play we had left.”

Still, the second year Cup driver felt satisfied with his run deep into the Playoffs.

“Proud of our team” he said. “We were in position at the end to potentially capitalize on it. Just the penalty at the beginning buried us. Win as a team, lose as a team. These guys have kept me in the Playoffs giving me positions on pit road.

“Go to Phoenix next week and see if we can win.”