YellaWood 500: Chase Briscoe clinches Championship 4 berth with Talladega win

TALLADEGA, Ala. — Joe Gibbs Racing driver Chase Briscoe and his No. 19 Bass Pro Shops team are heading to the Championship 4 in Phoenix after prevailing in NASCAR Overtime at Talladega Superspeedway.

Briscoe, who at one point last season was unsure of where he would race in 2025 as Stewart-Haas Racing closed its doors, now has three Cup Series wins and 15 top-five finishes in his first season with JGR in his first Championship 4 appearance after winning the YellaWood 500.

The 30-year-old native of Mitchell, Indiana, was asked how those final few laps in the draft played out for him.

“Ty Gibbs, incredible teammate there,” Briscoe said. “I mean, I honestly would not have won that race without Ty. An amazing team effort. I can’t believe I won a superspeedway race. I haven’t done it at any level. Thank you guys so much. Every time we come to Talladega, this place is sold out. Johnny Morris is here from Bass Pro Shops. It’s not hit me — we’re going to Phoenix.”

He was also asked what this win means to him.

“I don’t know what’s more unbelievable — the fact that we’re going to the Championship 4 or that I won a superspeedway race,” Briscoe added. “It’s unbelievable. What an amazing day. I wish so badly my family was here. Normally, I have at least one person here and everybody’s kind of been under the weather, so nobody is here. But so glad that Johnny Morris is here. I’ve never been able to win with Johnny here and I know how special this place is to him and the Bass Pro Shops brand.

“Unbelievable that we’re going to be able to race for a championship in this thing. What an amazing day, an amazing car. I can’t thank Ty Gibbs enough. He was an incredible teammate there at the end. Honestly, it was just so selfless. He could’ve easily tried to make a move to try and win the race and he pushed me to the win. Just an unbelievable day.”

Front Row Motorsports driver Todd Gilliland was looking for his first career win after leading 11 laps. The driver of the No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford went on to earn a career-best second-place finish at Talladega.

“I’m definitely excited, but maybe wishing a little bit what I could’ve done differently,” Gilliland said. “I’m sure in 10 or 15 minutes it will sink in and I’ll be pretty happy. I mean, that’s just the dream, right? To be in contention to win a race like this, and I certainly think we had everything to get it done in our Ford Mustang. We just came up a bit short.

“Yeah, it happened to work out right that I saw my teammates a lot today, and we work well together. I’m really proud of them and really happy with that. At the end, when it was me and Zane (Smith) on the bottom lane, I was really hoping we could just get clear and take a 1-2 finish there, but it never comes that easy. We’ll keep building on all of those aspects for Martinsville and Phoenix.”

JGR’s Ty Gibbs had one of his best races of the 2025 Cup Series season, finishing third after winning Stage 1. This was Gibbs’ first top-five finish since Dover back in July, where there was also a teammate (Denny Hamlin) in Victory Lane that day.

“It was my best shot to win and just try to make myself go into the best possible position to win, so happy to help the 19 (Chase Briscoe) get into the final 4,” Gibbs said. “I wish we could’ve won that one. We were really fast today. We won Stage 1 and Briscoe won Stage 2 and we both were close there for the win. I’m happy for that team. Just being a great teammate out here doing the teammate thing. I’m happy for them. I hope they can go and win it. I’d like to see them do that.”

Results of the 2025 YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway are listed below:

Other Race Facts

Hendrick Motorsports teammates William Byron and Kyle Larson were in control on the final restart of the YellaWood 500, as both drivers were looking to win to lock themselves into the Championship 4.

Unfortunately for the Hendrick teammates, Larson ran out of fuel on the final lap, and Byron was spun from behind, resulting in a 25th-place finish for the No. 24 team and a 26th-place finish for the No. 5 team, with just one race to go in the Round of 8.

The 2025 Talladega fall race had 27 different leaders (third-most ever in a NASCAR Cup Series race) and 77 lead changes (fourth-most ever in a Cup Series race), according to NASCAR Insights.

Casey Mears, who is on the quest for 500 career Cup Series starts, finished 18th in Garage 66’s No. 66 SI Yachts Ford. This was Garage 66’s first top-20 finish in the Cup Series since 2020.

Mears also finished ahead of all former Cup Series teams (Richard Childress Racing and Hendrick).

Haas Factory Team driver Cole Custer earned his second top-five finish of the 2025 season. After finishing fourth in the Daytona summer race, Custer finished fifth in the Talladega fall race. Before this season, the last time Custer earned a top-five finish in the Cup Series was his 2021 victory at Kentucky Speedway.

Custer now has four top-five finishes in his career, with two of them coming in the last nine races, and the previous two coming in back-to-back races in 2020.

“It was awesome,” Custer said. “We’ve been really good at the speedways this year, and we just bought our time and were there at the very end, trying to be smart. Our guys have brought really fast Ford Mustangs to the track. It’s been fun and so awesome to have Sysco on the hood this weekend at the race track and giving them a good run. We wish we were five spots better, but it was definitely a great way to get a solid finish here and hopefully carry that momentum into Martinsville.”

There were four open cars from Front Row Motorsports and 23XI Racing inside the top 10: Todd Gilliland (second), Bubba Wallace (fourth), Tyler Reddick (seventh) and Zane Smith (ninth).

After some superspeedway chaos, here is what the Cup Series playoff standings look like heading into the final race of the Round of 8:

GRID RANKING