“Built for Pressure”: Briscoe Dominates Darlington While Reddick, Wallace, and Jones Shape the Playoff Narrative

NASCAR Cup Series

DARLINGTON, S.C. — August 31, 2025. A year after winning the Southern 500 as an underdog, Chase Briscoe returned to Darlington Raceway and removed all doubt. In his first Playoff race with Joe Gibbs Racing, Briscoe controlled the night, led more than 300 laps, and defended a late charge from Tyler Reddick to open the postseason with a statement win.

“I’ve always just loved high-pressure situations,” Briscoe said. “Statistically, I typically run better in the Playoffs… The higher the pressure, the better I do for whatever reason.”

The 19 Team’s “Old-School Beat-Down”

Crew chief James Small called the night in blunt terms. “I woke up this morning and sent the guys a message… We just need to lay an old-school beat-down to them. That’s exactly what we did tonight,” he said, adding praise for a pit crew he called “unsung” and “flawless.”

Joe Gibbs framed the victory as the product of speed and chemistry that have come together quickly. “You look for speed,” Gibbs said. “Like tonight starting up front, then to kind of dominate the race… I think what he showed is great speed. I think he’s really hard-working. Great person.”

Briscoe’s only real scare came with a charging Reddick in the closing laps and an alternator issue that forced the No. 19 to shut down cooling systems. “We shut down everything… He had to man up there,” Small said. Briscoe shrugged off the discomfort: “It wasn’t as hard as I expected… I kind of got in the mindset of I can’t do anything about it now, so just deal with it.”

From the driver’s seat, the endgame was all about defense and discipline. “I just knew that I could not let Tyler get inside of my bumper,” Briscoe said. “I would back my corner up into three so much to make sure I could get on the wall and not hit it.”

The result: a second straight Darlington win, seven additional Playoff points, and—more importantly to Briscoe—the feeling that the team’s ceiling is still higher. “I felt like tonight is definitely what we’re capable of… If we just do our jobs right, we at least should be in the mix,” he said.

Toyota Strength Across the Board

While Briscoe’s red, white, and blue Bass Pro Shops Toyota set the pace, the broader Toyota camp filled the sharp end of the running order and controlled the race narrative.

Bubba Wallace called it a “great Playoff run” after finishing inside the top six. “I was doing my best not to overdrive the corners the last couple laps,” Wallace said. “We had a couple mistakes on pit road. I had a couple mistakes on the track. We were able to rebound really well. Our U.S. Air Force Toyota Camry was solid.”

Wallace said he consciously dialed back aggression as the race wore on. “I was counting down the laps one by one. Limit the mistakes… keeping the big picture in check, enjoying the moment. Here we are top six at Darlington.”

Erik Jones, in the Dollar Tree Camry, spent the night in the hunt and left thinking about one critical moment: pit road. “Probably to come off lead in pit road,” Jones said when asked what he needed. “I felt like we were probably a little bit better than both of them. I couldn’t get the run. I thought I had the 45 there with maybe four or five to go… Racing for the win.”

Gibbs highlighted the collective result for the manufacturer. “Really important,” he said of Toyota’s top-seven presence. “To have one of our cars really perform like it did tonight… this racetrack… will really test you.”

A Team Finding Its Form

Small and Gibbs each pointed to a midseason inflection point. Small cited “the final stage of Kansas” as a moment when things clicked—qualifying speed improved, stage points followed, and Sundays took care of themselves. “From that point on… our stage point accumulation… has been ridiculous compared to the first 10 races,” Small said.

Gibbs underscored how quickly Briscoe integrated into a new ecosystem. “It’s extremely hard,” he said. “You got to form a relationship with your crew chief and everybody… It’s a credit to James and everybody, to Chase, the way they’ve approached this in a very quick way.”

For Briscoe, the expectations are unchanged—attack every week. “My plan is go and win every week,” Small said. Briscoe echoed the approach: “All the other 26 weeks of the regular season, I just try to go win… It’s really no different than what I’m doing the next nine weeks.”

Reddick’s Last-Lap Math and the Margin

Reddick’s late lunge into Turn 3 was expected—and accounted for. “Yes and no,” Briscoe said when asked if he anticipated a dive. “I felt like I had a comfortable enough gap… I wasn’t really expecting a dive bomb, per se.” Small’s only concern in those seconds was contact: “I was just hoping he didn’t slide up and tag us.”

The near-miss underlined how the 500-mile grind compresses to inches at the end. “This racetrack is one that everybody in our sport thinks is probably one of the hardest… If you go 500 miles here, odds are if you got a weakness, it’s going to find you,” Gibbs said.

Wallace’s Reset and Jones’ Window

Wallace’s night traced the line between urgency and restraint that often defines Darlington. He admitted to mis-communicating balance as the track changed but regrouped. “We were so far down chasing one side of the balance… All in all we didn’t oversail it. Hit base hits all day,” he said.

For Jones, the window was there—but narrow. “We were right there all day,” he said. “Hopefully we keep these cars rolling and get one soon.”

What the Win Changes

Beyond the banner-raising Gibbs promised on Tuesday, the win provides tactical latitude. “Anytime you win the first round, it’s a massive weight off your shoulders,” Small said. “You’ve seen before in the Playoffs… a lot of guys did a strategy that really wasn’t what you needed to do to win the race… To not be in that situation I think is a huge advantage.”

Briscoe agreed. “It opens us up for the next two weeks to do things a little bit different maybe strategy-wise just because we know we have the win in the bag.”

He was also clear about the part he’ll remember most: how complete the performance felt. “Not just winning, but I felt like we dominated,” he said. “That’s really cool to do.”

And then there was the victory lane scene—family, confetti, and a new tradition for the Briscoes. Son Brooks summed up the night in the simplest terms after waving the checkered flag: “The pit crew got really fast… Then he won the race.”

Briscoe smiled. “There you have it.”