Chase Briscoe spent most of Sunday afternoon out front in the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but during the final few laps, staying there became anything but easy. With Kyle Larson filling his mirrors and Tyler Reddick lurking behind them, Briscoe held off a furious late charge to win the race, capping a dominant day with a frantic final lap.
Briscoe swept both stages and led a race-high 175 of 267 laps in the No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota, including the final 40. But as the laps wound down, Larson erased Briscoe's advantage and turned what had been a commanding afternoon into an epic fight to the finish. Briscoe knew Larson was coming.
“Honestly, more of the windshield, except for when Larson would get really, really close,” Briscoe said of where his attention was during the closing laps. “The aero is such a big deal. On 1 and 2 I felt like if I could somewhat cover where he was at. It was a huge guessing game.”
Larson had spent much of the afternoon digging out of a hole. An extended early pit stop dropped his No. 5 Kyle Busch Tribute Chevrolet a lap down, but a timely caution gave him the opportunity to take the wave-around. From there, Larson methodically worked his way back toward the front.
“I could tell I was gaining on him pretty quickly,” Larson said. “So yeah, just tried to stay patient, but my tires were getting kind of burned off by the time I got there.”
By the final lap, there was no patience left. Larson chased Briscoe into Turns 3 and 4 with Reddick close behind, giving three drivers a chance at the victory coming off the final corner. Larson moved high in an attempt to build momentum around Briscoe, but his Chevrolet broke loose. Larson overcorrected and slapped the outside wall, leaving Reddick nowhere to go. Reddick ran into the back of Larson and spun down the frontstretch as Briscoe ran away to the checkered flag.
“I was just trying to push hard through three and four to just build some momentum at him,” Larson said. “Just got really loose and overcorrected in the wall. Thankfully I was able to limp it home.”
As Larson somehow gathered up his damaged car and crossed the line second, Reddick’s sliding car recovered to finish third.
“We have to capitalize when we have Toyota Camrys as fast as this.” Reddick said post-race. “We have to win those races. The key to that is being clean and executing. We just haven't done that in a very long time.”
For Briscoe, it was an afternoon in which seemingly everything had gone his way. He took the lead for the first time on Lap 47 and led 82 consecutive laps on his way to the Stage 1 victory. Briscoe returned to the front on Lap 163 and completed the stage sweep before eventually taking command for good on Lap 228.
The victory was Briscoe's second of the season and seventh of his NASCAR Cup Series career, as well as his first in 12 starts at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
“What an amazing day,” Briscoe said. “I hope that was a good race. From my seat there at the end, I don't know what else you could want from a cat-and-mouse standpoint.”
Briscoe's near-perfect afternoon stood in stark contrast to the day endured by polesitter and defending South Point 400 winner Denny Hamlin.
Hamlin led the opening 34 laps, but spent much of the afternoon fighting the handling of his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. His day took another turn late in Stage 2 when he spun in Turn 4 with two laps remaining in the stage. Hamlin managed to keep the car out of the wall and continued, but the mistake took him out of contention for stage points and forced him to spend the remainder of the race trying to recover.
Hamlin ultimately finished 16th, a disappointing result after beginning the afternoon from the pole. Behind the drama at the front, Austin Cindric finished fourth and Ryan Blaney fifth. William Byron, Chase Elliott, Bubba Wallace, Shane van Gisbergen and Joey Logano completed the top 10.
The runner-up finish capped a remarkable recovery for Larson and strengthened his position atop the NASCAR Cup Series standings. He leaves Las Vegas with a 40-point advantage over Hamlin heading into the next race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. For Larson, however, the points weren't what occupied his mind immediately after climbing from his battered race car.
“I’m plus 40, but I also look at it like, dang, if we could have just fired off more in the ballpark, we could have had another 10 points minimum,” Larson said. “We’ll just keep learning and keep after it.”
For Briscoe, there was nothing left to wonder about. After 400 miles, two stage victories and one last-lap challenge from one of NASCAR's best, he had completed the sweep at Las Vegas.
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