Briscoe was licking his chops in final Nashville laps, but ended up on the wrong side of three wide

The view out of the windshield for Chase Briscoe was exactly what he wanted to see: a side-by-side battle for the lead that was pulling him into contention.

It was what Briscoe needed in the final laps of Sunday night’s race at Nashville Superspeedway, and what he thought was going to allow him to steal the victory. But once he got to his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates, the opening that was there was not the one he needed.

“I was licking my chops because I thought every opportunity was going to be perfect for me,” Briscoe said of Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin’s battle. “But with them running side by side, they just kept killing each other’s momentum and washing up the racetrack, and it would kind of leave the bottom open for me through the corner. I just kept backing my corner way up and letting them drive in, and I just couldn’t ever build the run.

“I would get close and would have to back off, and just never get a big enough run to do something with it. But yeah. I thought I had all the ingredients certainly there at the end to be able to make a move, and it finally developed on the last lap, and I just got put on the top there, and that’s not where you wanted to be.”

Briscoe took his run at the white flag by going to the outside of Hamlin and Bell to make it three wide. It lasted until Turn 1, when Bell drove in deeper to briefly clear his teammates before Hamlin made one last surge to make the winning pass coming off Turn 2.

By that point, Briscoe was once again third and could only follow the pair to the finish line.

The final caution with 13 laps to go set up the frantic run to the finish. Briscoe was running second at the time of the caution, having made his final pit stop with 42 laps to go and cycling back into the mix with his teammates. Bell led the way and would have likely had the winning strategy had the race gone green to the end.

On the final restart with four laps to go, Hamlin shoved Bell clear into the lead before surging to second. It dropped Briscoe to third position, where he had a front row seat to the battle coming to the white flag.

“I knew they obviously weren’t going to cut me a break; Denny didn’t cut me a break all night every time I caught him,” Briscoe said. “So, yeah, I was trying to get three wide to the bottom and then Denny blocked it, and honestly, I was surprised that I was able to get three wide [on the] top.

“I thought we had a shot at it, certainly. It’s just unfortunate how it ended up for us.”