Darlington Raceway has a well-earned reputation for being one of NASCAR’s toughest tracks.
It demands excellence from its challengers. Drivers must be bold enough to run inches off the wall lap after lap, but savvy enough to know how hard to push their cars over the course of a long race.
The most prolific winners at Darlington are titans of the sport: David Pearson, Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon. Although racing at Darlington presents a high degree of difficulty, the track has a way of bringing out the best in drivers who embrace the challenge. In Sunday night’s (Sept. 1) Southern 500, Chase Briscoe battled the Lady in Black and earned the biggest victory of his racing career.
Briscoe’s win came under exceptionally difficult circumstances. He and the No. 14 team were well below the playoff cut line coming to Darlington for the regular-season finale. Winning the race was the only way he could have advanced to the playoffs, but Briscoe’s lone Cup Series victory came back in March 2022 at Phoenix Raceway.
Since then, Stewart-Haas Racing has been in a downward spiral, a decline that saw the organization shut out of victory lane in the Cup Series in 2023. The malaise continued into this season, and news broke in late May that SHR would close at the end of the year. Briscoe secured a new ride with Joe Gibbs Racing for 2025, but the impending closure of his already struggling team offered little hope for this season.
To make matters worse, the No. 14 team was in a serious slump heading to Darlington.
Briscoe had been hovering around the playoff bubble early in the season, and a second-place result in the rain at New Hampshire Motor Speedway kept him within striking distance of reaching the postseason on points. The next week at Nashville Superspeedway, Briscoe’s fuel tank ran dry while battling for the win on the fifth and final overtime attempt. From there, the No. 14 went into free fall, struggling just to finish in the top 15 as Briscoe slipped further and further below the cut line. In seven races, he went from 25 points out of the playoffs to 144 out.
Sure, a win could have saved him, but Briscoe had only led 14 laps all season. A victory seemed out of the question.
However, Darlington provided an opportunity.
Briscoe fired off with top-five speed, a pace he maintained throughout the day-to-night transition. It looked like the No. 14 team could get its best finish in months.
Yet the only way to get…
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