(Photo: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
By Aaron Bearden
Post-race review and analysis from the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Darlington Raceway.
Who Won?
Chase Briscoe. He outlasted Kyle Busch in a last-lap battle to score his second win of 2020.
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Battling the best
Chase Briscoe’s hardest week ended with the biggest win of his life, but it didn’t come without a challenge from the best statistical driver in NASCAR Xfinity Series history.
Briscoe led the way in the final run to the checkered flag during Thursday’s Toyota 200, shooting ahead of Justin Allgaier on the final restart to secure the position.
Just two days earlier he and his wife, Marissa, had found out that they’d lost their first child 12 weeks into pregnancy. Winning a race wouldn’t ease that pain, but Briscoe was eager to end his emotional week on a high note.
With the laps winding down he was poised to do just that, but one final challenger appeared in his rear-view mirror.
Kyle Busch.
With 96 wins and 218 top-fives in 354 career starts, Busch is statistically the winningest driver in Xfinity Series history – and arguably the greatest. When he competes with the tour, he’s the baseline for greatness that series regulars use to measure themselves. Beating him is like toppling Mark Martin during his reign of dominance in the 1990s – a true proving moment that a competitor will remember for the rest of their life.
Busch started 26th on Thursday and had to methodically work his way into contention, but the Nevadan had found the lead by the end of Stage 2 and seemed poised for another dominant drive. But he opened the door during the stage break when he sped on pit road, inciting a penalty that forced him to the back of the field.
Over the next stint Busch steadily crawled his way back into contention, rising up to fifth over a long green-flag run. A late caution for a spinning Michael Annett allowed the two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion to close the gap to the leaders, and his Joe Gibbs Racing pit crew helped him emerge in third after the final round of stops.
Briscoe battled Justin Allgaier on the ensuing restart, but both drivers knew the leader would be in for another challenge. Briscoe prevailed in the battle despite contact and drove off to a healthy advantage, but Busch quickly rose to second behind him and mounted a challenge.
The chase proceeded over the final laps and culminated in a classic battle for the win. Briscoe got into the outside wall coming to take the white flag, making one of a few small mistakes during a time when he admitted that he emotionally “wasn’t there.”
Busch dove under him for the position, leading at the line. But he couldn’t clear Briscoe before the turn. In that moment Briscoe determined that he couldn’t give the veteran a chance to clear him.
“Getting into turn one, I knew that there was no way he was going to drive in deeper than me,” he said. “I wasn’t going to let it happen.”
The two drivers barreled into Turn 1 side-by-side, bounced off of each other and rolled through Turn 2. Briscoe emerged from the battle in the lead, held off a final dive from Busch in Turns 3 and 4 and powered back onto the front stretch for a hard-fought victory.
A week that proved immensely challenging ended with the biggest victory of Briscoe’s young career.
“This is the number one win,” Briscoe said. “Honestly, winning the Daytona 500 couldn’t even top the feeling of the ups and downs. This is what my family needed and what my wife needed.
“This is more than a race win,” he later continued. “This is the biggest day of my life after the toughest day in my life, and to be able to beat the best there is, is so satisfying.”
Busch settled for the runner-up spot for the second time in as many days. He’d had another run-in with a different Chase on Wednesday, mistakenly spinning Chase Elliott in an incident that ultimately kept either driver from contending for the win.
Rain fell moments later as the field paced under caution, leaving Busch in second behind his teammate, Denny Hamlin, who was on older tires.
“I knew being on the inside going into one wasn’t good, but he (Chase Briscoe) got such a bad run off of four that I had no choice,” Busch said. “I thought about blitzing the outside of three and four, but I knew that he would just go in on the bottom and slide up to the top and plug it for me. I didn’t really know what to do so I just tried what I tried and it wasn’t going to be enough.”
Busch later joked about topping Martin’s total of second-place finishes – a mark he unknowingly already bested. Martin had 24 runner-up runs and 49 victories in his Xfinity career, both of which fall short of Busch’s 54 finishes in second.
You can read more about Briscoe’s emotional win here.
JR Motorsports shows promise
JR Motorsports didn’t bring home a victory or even factor largely into the final battle of the day. But the organization still managed what might have been their best overall performance of the 2020 season.
With the laps winding down in Thursday’s race, Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s squad all found themselves contending for top-fives. Justin Allgaier battled Chase Briscoe for what appeared to be the race win at the time, wrestling the lead away from the Hoosier with 27 laps remaining.
The trio of Noah Gragson, Michael Annett and Daniel Hemric couldn’t match Allgaier’s pace in the final stage, but the trio traded passes for positions in the top-10. Gragson had won the first stage from the pole, and Annett and Hemric were each right with the Nevadan in a battle for third as the race dipped down to the final 20 laps.
Unfortunately for the group, things went slightly awry in the race’s final frame.
Annett suffered a spin and flat tire while racing in traffic. He tried to limp his machine to pit road, but the tire ripped through his sheet metal and caused heavy damage. The one-time winner dropped to 25th at race’s end after a promising run, citing a “rookie mistake” for his crash.
“I just got too low into Turn 3 and spun,” he said. “I was so glad to get back on the track and we had a good car. We’ll put another one together for Charlotte and keep this going.”
The crash and ensuing caution led the field to pit road before a short nine-lap run to the checkered flag. That worked against Allgaier’s car, which proved smoother on long runs throughout the day. The Illinoisan approached the final restart from the front row, but couldn’t beat Briscoe on the opening lap.
Kyle Busch passed him moments later before rising up to challenge Briscoe for the win. As they streaked across the line just feet apart, Allgaier watched on from a distant third.
“We needed a bit of a longer run and I think we could have had something for them,” Allgaier said.
Gragson and Hemric held on to strong runs, but both competitors dropped a couple of spots in the final laps, with Busch and Austin Cindric rising by them to score top-fives. Gragson hit the stripe in fifth, with Hemric following just behind him in sixth.
The end result was run-of-the-mill for the Xfinity Series power, but the group showed pace that it hopes will transition to more success next week at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
“All-in-all it was a really good day and I’m proud of the speed we had,” Allgaier said. “It makes me excited to see what we can do at Charlotte.”
Hemric echoed his teammate’s thoughts.
“I feel like we have something to build on going forward and we’ll get ready to do that on Monday night in Charlotte,” he said. “You know there’s nothing better than a home race. Bring it on.”
Brett Moffitt find pace in return from injury
In any other year Brett Moffitt would have missed numerous races. He’d likely be a championship afterthought in the Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series and would need wins to have any chance at playoff contention.
But Moffitt chose the right year to suffer a mid-season injury – if such a time exists.
The 2018 Truck Series champion suffered fractures to both femurs in a motocross accident in March, requiring upward of eight weeks to heal and recuperate. But he did so right as COVID-19 brought sports to a halt, sending NASCAR into a hiatus of more than two months as the tour worked to find an opportunity to return.
Moffitt made his initial return during the esports era, and got back to real-life action in Thursday’s Toyota 200, making one of many planned starts for Our Motorsports. The run served as a proper test and tune-up for the Iowan before his Truck Series championship quest resumes next week at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
With no practice or qualifying, Moffitt and the No. 02 team had only the race to observe their pace, adjust on the car and earn a result. Despite that and a 22nd-place start, Moffitt showed competitive speed from the jump. He rose up into the top-15 in the opening stages and stayed there throughout the event.
When the checkered flag flew Moffitt was in 11th – his best finish in five 2020 starts.
“Man what (an) emotional day,” Moffitt tweeted about the run, claiming to be “pumped up” and calling the result a “damn win” for Our Motorsports.
Man what a emotional day after breaking both femurs two months ago to a p11 finish our first race back I am PUMPED UP! I can’t thank everyone @OurMotorsports enough for the effort they have put in during this time and stuck behind me through it all! That is a damn win for us! 🍻
— Brett Moffitt (@Brett_Moffitt) May 21, 2020
Other Notes
- Credit to the Xfinity Series field for a clean race. Only two of the race’s five cautions were tied to incidents in the pack.
- Ryan Sieg just keeps rolling. The veteran notched his fourth top-10 of the year on Thursday, and his 6.8 average finish trails only Briscoe and Harrison Burton among series regulars.
- Speaking of Burton, the rookie struggled just a bit in his Darlington debut. He finished a quiet ninth, his first finish outside of the top-five.
- Brandon Jones appeared poised for another top-10 when a loose wheel brought him to pit road under green, relegating the Georgian to a 20th-place result at race’s end. His past three races have been feast-or-famine, with a victory in one event and an average finish of 25th in the other two.
- The opening of the season hasn’t been kind to Jeremy Clements, with three finishes of 28th or worse in the opening four races. But in the two events he’s completed without issues, the 2017 race winner has finished ninth (Auto Club Speedway) and 12th (Darlington). Those runs could make him a potential contender for a playoff spot if he can hit on them with some regularity.
