Chase Briscoe reacts to wild stats, keeping company with Dale Earnhardt after dominant Darlington win: ‘Crazy to hear those’

Chase Briscoe put himself alongside some elite company after his dominant victory in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series playoff opener at Darlington Raceway. Briscoe led 309-of-367 laps, becoming the first driver to win back-to-back Southern 500s since Greg Biffle in 2005 & ’06.

His 309 laps led were the most in a Southern 500 since Bobby Allison in 1971 and the most in any Darlingon race since Dale Earnhardt Sr. in 1986. When you’re mentioned in the same breath as Hall of Famers such as Allison and Earnhardt, you know you’ve done something special.

“It is crazy just to hear those stats,” Briscoe said on The Teardown podcast. “Just to win one Southern 500 is such a big deal. The respect level you get in the garage — everybody will tell you that if you can win at Darlington, it’s a hard thing to do. Your peers I feel like look at you differently when you run good here.

“I’ll walk by the trophy at the house every now and then, I just take a second to look at some of the faces and names on there and it’s like, why is my name even on this thing? It’s just Hall of Famer after Hall of Famer and legend after legend. And then there’s just Chase Briscoe. Like, how in the world did that happen? Now to have two and side-by-side, it’s pretty unbelievable.”

Chase Briscoe had the run of his career at Darlington

Last year, Briscoe’s win put him into the playoffs. This year, it’s clinched him a spot in the Round of 12. For most of the night, it was Briscoe and everybody else. Tyler Reddick came close on multiple occasions in the closing laps of passing Briscoe, but to no avail. 

He was that good. Toyota across the board had a great night. In fact, not one Chevrolet for Ford playoff driver finished inside the top 10. Toyota had four — Briscoe, Reddick, Bubba Wallace and Denny Hamlin.

Briscoe has been one of the most consistent drivers in the series over the last couple of months. The one thing missing was a truly dominant showing. Briscoe finally did that at Darlington.

“I feel like this is definitely what we’re capable of doing,” Briscoe told Marty Snider of NBC Sports. “We haven’t been able to go out and dominate a race like that, but the potential has been there from day one.”