Chase Briscoe and his No. 98 Stewart-Haas Racing team found himself with a shot at the win late in the going after the mishap with race leader Justin Allgaier. Briscoe went to second when Allgaier had a flat tire go down with less than 10 to go.
Briscoe tried to catch Tyler Reddick but was not fast enough to do so and fell .655 seconds short of winning at Bristol. However, despite finishing second, the No. 98 driver isn’t pleased with the finish.
“We had such a good Ford Performance Mustang,” Briscoe said to PRN Radio. “On the last restart, I just didn’t fire off good, I was really loose getting in, then I would get really tight. Those last five laps, it finally started coming to me, I was definitely running him down, just ran out of laps.”
“Man that one stings, you don’t get very many opportunities to win at a place like Bristol. I really want to win here bad. I felt like we had a Mustang to do it, just didn’t get it done.”
For John Hunter Nemechek and the GMS Racing team, it was a hard fought third-place finish after all the troubles they had early. On Lap 52, Nemechek’s tire went down and caused him to spin out in Turn 2 to bring out the caution. The GMS driver rallied to finish fifth in Stage 2 before ultimately finishing third.
“I don’t know how many times I went to the back and came to the front,” Nemechek told PRN Radio. “Good showing for our Midnight Moonlight Moonshine Chevrolet. Overall, a pretty good night. Looking forward to keeping this momentum into the Playoffs. The third-place finish shows what our car had tonight. I just wish I wouldn’t have sped on pit road, wouldn’t have had a tire go down, and starting in the back, just builds character.”
Nemechek started ninth and finished third for his fourth top-five of the season.