For the second straight week, a brand new winner shook up the NASCAR playoff image.
After a wild three-wide transfer with 25 laps to go, Chase Briscoe was capable of maintain off the sphere — together with a hard-charging Kyle Busch — to win the 2024 Southern 500 and make the 2024 NASCAR Cup Sequence playoffs.
2024 would be the second time in Briscoe’s four-year profession that he’ll race within the playoffs, as his Phoenix win in 2022 clinched him a spot in that yr’s postseason.
On the flip aspect of the battle for the win was two-time Cup Sequence champion Kyle Busch, who, like Briscoe, wanted a win to make the playoff area. After a runner-up end at Daytona one week in the past, it appeared like Busch may put his disappointing 2024 marketing campaign behind him if he may discover a means round Briscoe.
Nonetheless, it wasn’t meant to be.
Nor was it meant to be for Chris Buescher, who had his coronary heart damaged at Darlington for the second time in 2024.
“We felt like we did what we would have liked to do at this time,” Buescher instructed NBC Sports activities. “Did not fairly get it accomplished once more, now we’re on the surface wanting in. Sadly, it is simply the system we’re all enjoying in. We had such a terrific yr. We outran so many of those automobiles which are going to get to compete for a championship, however that is the system. We did not work it proper.”
Buescher’s most important competitor for the ultimate playoff spot coming into Sunday’s race was Bubba Wallace, who received the pole and led early earlier than falling off because the race went alongside. A slew of late cautions had Wallace knocking on the door to doubtlessly knock Buescher out, however a crash proper in entrance of the No. 23 doomed Wallace’s playoff probabilities, even with out Briscoe’s win.
Regardless of a broken automobile, Wallace clawed his technique to a Sixteenth-place end that simply wasn’t fairly adequate for a second consecutive playoff berth.
“We simply acquired behind on changes,” Wallace instructed NBC Sports activities. “We acquired again in site visitors, a spot we hadn’t been in all day, and acquired caught up in another person’s mess. Hats off to the 14.”
“I believed I did one thing yesterday,” Wallace added, referring to his blazing quick pole lap on Saturday. “They one-upped us at this time and stood up when it was sport time.”
Wallace’s unlucky finish to the common season was watched in particular person by 23XI Racing co-owner and NBA legend Michael Jordan, who nervously watched the crown jewel race within the No. 23 crew’s pit stall.
The 2024 NASCAR Cup Sequence playoffs will start Sept. 8 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.