The 2025 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs got underway with Sunday's Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, and one driver made an immediate statement that he's going to be right in the mix until the bitter end.
That would be Chase Briscoe, who led 309 of 367 laps and held off fellow Toyota drivers Tyler Reddick, Erik Jones, and John Hunter Nemechek to win NASCAR's oldest race for the second year in a row. Unlike last year, though, don't expect him to fade away quietly.
Briscoe has been one of the fastest drivers in the garage all summer, and he's only getting better at the right time. That could be a recipe for a trip to Phoenix Raceway in November as one of the four drivers battling for the Cup Series title.
After a slow start, all of the momentum is on Chase Briscoe's side
It was hard to gauge Briscoe entering the 2025 season, given he spent his first four seasons driving for a fledgling Stewart-Haas Racing operation. At SHR, he was one of the most unpredictable drivers in the field on a week-to-week and even a season-to-season basis, making the playoffs twice but failing to finish in the top 20 in points the other two years.
At the start of the year, Briscoe took some time to get used to his new surroundings. He sat 21st in points following the fifth race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and, aside from being 10th after the Daytona 500, didn't crack the top 10 until after his win at Pocono Raceway in late June. He had lightning quick qualifying speed, but it seldom held up throughout the race during the first half of the year.
Even heading into the playoffs, with five top five finishes in his 10 most recent starts, it was hard to take Briscoe seriously as a legitimate title threat because he never showcased the ability to take over a race with his raw speed.
His Pocono win was on fuel mileage, and several of his other top finishes, such as his runner-up results at Dover Motor Speedway and Iowa Speedway, were also due to pit strategy. But at Darlington, that changed.
Briscoe simply would not be denied on Sunday night. On multiple occasions, he lost the lead on a restart but quickly regained control of the race. His ability to conserve his tires late in a run has been considered a weakness, but at the end of the night, during what was the longest stretch without a pit stop all race, he did enough to keep all challengers at bay. It was a championship-level performance in every sense of the phrase.
If there is any skepticism remaining about the Indiana native, the only reason is because he's not a driver who was considered a title threat at the start of the year, or even halfway through the year.
There's still something admittedly a bit off about a driver with four career wins being mentioned in the same conversations as established stars such as Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney, and William Byron. In all likelihood, we still don't know exactly how good Briscoe is yet.
But right now, he's as hot as anybody, and he has firmly placed himself in that discussion. Whether Briscoe will survive the randomness of the playoffs to make it to the Championship 4, let alone win it, is anyone's guess. At the very least though, he can officially be added to the short list of drivers with a real chance after his statement Southern 500 win.