Briscoe gives Joe Gibbs Racing 2nd spot in NASCAR's championship finale with OT win at Talladega

Audio By Carbonatix

TALLADEGA, Ala. (AP) — Joe Gibbs Racing was facing an internal mutiny just a month ago when two of its championship-eligible drivers didn't feel the team owner's grandson was helping his teammates try to win the Cup title.

Ty Gibbs, grandson of team owner Joe Gibbs, raced both Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin hard early in the playoff race at New Hampshire. Gibbs wasn't eligible for the championship, Hamlin grew frustrated at being held up by his teammate, so he wrecked Gibbs out of his way.

It led to organizational discussions as to what Joe Gibbs expected out of his four drivers the remainder of the playoffs. The payoff came Sunday when Ty Gibbs pushed Chase Briscoe in overtime to the win at Talladega Superspeedway to give JGR two spots in NASCAR's championship race.

Briscoe is in the winner-take-all finale alongside teammate Hamlin as Toyota claimed the first two of the four berths with one race remaining to set the championship field.

“Ty Gibbs, just incredible teammate there. I mean, I honestly would not have won that race without Ty,” Briscoe said. “This is an amazing team effort. I can’t believe I won a superspeedway race. I haven’t done it at any level.”

Team owner Gibbs, a three-time Super Bowl winning coach and NASCAR Hall of Fame team owner, praised his grandson for getting Briscoe into victory lane. He also explained the intricacies of fielding four separate teams under one banner.

“It’s such a competitive world. I’m kind of used to it in football. You get it,” Joe Gibbs said. "But over here, we got four teams, and the challenge is always trying to get them to work together. If you think about it, each driver has got their own career. They got their own sponsor and it just becomes extremely competitive.

“So sometimes you wind up with issues like that. It’s part of part of sports. Guys are, you know, very competitive and want to make it happen. And so at different times, you may have issues that you got to deal with.”

Briscoe, who raced to his first career superspeedway victory, is in his first season driving for Gibbs. He landed there as Martin Truex Jr.'s replacement when Truex retired and Stewart-Haas Racing shuttered at the end of last year.

He's now going to race for the Cup title for the first time.

“Ty was the whole reason I won the race, he was extremely committed to me,” Briscoe said. “When I made a move, Ty went with me. He was just really selfless in the fact of he's going for his first career win and could have easily tried to make a move or done something different. But he just pushed me to the win and just an incredible team effort.”

Briscoe was sixth on the restart — a two-lap sprint in overtime to the finish — and Hendrick Motorsports drivers William Byron and Kyle Larson split the front row and lined up side-by-side for the Chevrolet drivers to control the race.

Byron was getting help from behind from fellow Chevrolet driver Carson Hocevar, a driver for Hendrick aligned Spire Motorsports. Larson's push was from Toyota driver Bubba Wallace, who did get Larson into the lead.

But Larson appeared to run out of fuel and dropped dramatically off the pace and Daytona 500 winner Byron, who is in danger of playoff elimination, lost his chance at victory when his push from Hocevar was too strong and it caused Byron to spin.

Briscoe, meanwhile, had no problems. He was committed to pushing Wallace, who is not in the playoff picture, to win to preserve the point standings but instead got a boost from Gibbs.

There are two open spots left in the championship field to be determined next week in the finale of the third round of the playoffs. Bell and Larson are above the elimination line but neither is all that comfortable.

“I’d rather have a bigger points cushion heading into next weekend, but we’ll regroup and focus on Martinsville,” said Larson, who is now mired in a 22-race losing streak dating to May.

Bell is 37 points above the cutline, only one point ahead of Larson, while Byron, Hendrick teammate Chase Elliott, and Team Penske drivers Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney are below the cutline.

“Plus 37 seems really good, but you expect a winner from the bottom four, even myself, any of the five of us can win Martinsville,” Bell said. “So plus 37 turns into plus one whenever you have a new winner and it's going to be a battle all day at Martinsville.”

Logano and Blaney have combined to win the last three Cup titles for Penske.

The race went to overtime when Chris Buescher was leading with two laps to go and he was spun from behind by Byron, who was shoved into Buescher by Hocevar. Buescher spun across the front of the pack and slammed hard into an inside wall in a one-car crash that sent the race to overtime.

Todd Gilliland finished a career-best second in a Ford for Front Row Motorsports — the team that alongside Michael Jordan-owned 23XI Racing is headed to mediation Tuesday in a federal antitrust suit — and Gibbs was third. Wallace, who drives for 23XI, was fourth.

Elliott's chances to advance into the final four took a hit when NASCAR's most popular driver was collected in the first crash of the race.

Elliott, the 2020 NASCAR champion, was already below the cutline for elimination when he was caught in an early eight-car crash 52 laps into the race. It sent the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to the garage for repairs and dropped Elliott to last in the 40-car field.

Elliott now goes to Martinsville Speedway in a must-win situation to advance to the title-deciding finale at Phoenix for the first time since 2022.

“It is what it is, I can't change it now,” Elliott said. “Just all eyes on Martinsville and try to go up there and get a win.”

Elliott won Martinsville once before, in 2020, when he parlayed the victory into his only Cup title.

The final race to set the championship four, next Sunday at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia, where Blaney won last year to advance to the title deciding playoff finale.

___

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing