Chase Briscoe appears to have the Cook Out Southern 500 figured out.
The first-year Joe Gibbs Racing racer turned in one of the most dominating performances of 2025 and defended his title at Darlington Raceway in the crown-jewel race Sunday night, winning the NASCAR Cup Series’ Round of 16 playoffs opener in Darlington, S.C.
Last year’s victor at Darlington, which qualified him for the playoffs, the Mitchell, Ind., native once again conquered The Track Too Tough to Tame by scorching the 38-car field and leading a career-high 309 laps.
His No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota held a 0.408-second advantage over Tyler Reddick’s Toyota, which mounted a dive-bomb try on the final lap between Turns 3 and 4.
Briscoe’s fourth career Cup win advances him to the Round of 12.
Briscoe’s Camry seemed to become looser during the longer run, giving Reddick a desperate shot in the last two turns.
“There at the end, that was way harder than it needed to be,” said Briscoe, who recorded his sixth top-five finish in the past 11 races. “As a fan, I’ve watched Martin (Truex Jr.) kind of dominate a lot of races. It was fun to finally be behind the wheel (of one).”
Reddick, who was wrecked on Lap 1, said he learned from crashing race leader Chris Buescher last season in the Darlington spring race not to overdo it in the turns.
“Doing the wrong thing last spring ended our day in 36th. … I learned from last spring that doesn’t work,” Reddick admitted.
Legacy Motorsports drivers Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek finished third and fourth, followed by AJ Allmendinger.
Toyota swept the Darlington races this season, with Denny Hamlin claiming the spring event. Briscoe was victorious in a Stewart-Haas Racing Ford last year.
With the first dozen positions occupied by playoff drivers, polesitter Hamlin, a five-time Darlington winner, led them to green. However, Josh Berry, in his first playoff start, looped the No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford in Turn 2 on Lap 1 for the first caution. Berry got into Reddick’s No. 45 Toyota, which suffered slight damage.
Briscoe grabbed the lead early from Hamlin, his JGR teammate, and dominated 85 of the 115 laps in Stage 1. Reddick rebounded to come in second, followed by Hamlin, Ross Chastain and Bubba Wallace as the top point earners.
The 367-lap race around the high-banked superspeedway restarted with the Toyotas of Hamlin and Briscoe swapping the lead.
Cody Ware spun to bring out the fourth caution. After Ryan Blaney was spun for the fifth yellow, the No. 19’s domination continued in easy fashion, topping Reddick, two-time Southern 500 winner Jones, Kyle Larson and Allmendinger for the top-five positions in Stage 2.
With a solid lead, Briscoe pitted on Lap 275 and resumed the fight while the pit stops cycled through to Chastain and Hamlin, who took turns at the point. Briscoe’s Toyota once again took the lead and lapped title contender Chase Elliott with 70 laps remaining in the playoff opener.
Derek Kraus’ engine failure brought out the seventh caution and sent the leaders to pit road again with just over 50 laps remaining.
–Field Level Media
