NASCAR Cook Out Southern 500 takeaways: Chase Briscoe delivers career performance in repeat win at Darlington

The NASCAR Cup Series kicked off its 10-race playoff stretch at Darlington Raceway on Sunday. At the conclusion of the 500 miles, it was Joe Gibbs Racing's Chase Briscoe who went back-to-back in the crown-jewel race after holding off a late charge from Tyler Reddick and Erik Jones.

Here are three takeaways from NASCAR's playoff opener:

Briscoe dominates Southern 500, leads Toyota party up front

A year removed from scoring the final win for the now-defunct Stewart-Haas Racing, Briscoe left no doubt on Sunday night, leading a career-high 309 laps to pick up his second win of the season and his second at the historic track. He is the first driver to lead 300 or more laps in the prestigious race since Hall of Famer Bobby Allison in 1971, per NASCAR Insights.

It was not without some challenges throughout the night. Briscoe experienced voltage issues and dealt with Reddick and Jones in the closing laps before eventually pulling away down the front stretch after a move to the inside from Reddick on the final lap.

By the end of the night, six of the top seven finishing positions were occupied by Toyota drivers, including the top four. Not only was Briscoe impressive and in a league of his own for much of the night, the Toyotas were the class of the field on a mistake-filled night from the playoff drivers.

Issues plague multiple playoff drivers

As we have seen in the opening race of the playoffs since the current system was put into place, it was a night of survival and who could avoid making a mistake on Sunday night.

From Josh Berry's opening-lap spin that also collected Reddick to pit road issues for Alex Bowman, Denny Hamlin, Bubba Wallace, Christopher Bell, Ryan Blaney and William Byron, mistakes seemed endless for the playoff contingent at "The Lady in Black."

Austin Dillon and Blaney also got together during a restart on Lap 209 that sent the two-time 2025 race winner for a spin off Turn 4. It was just the latest instance of playoff drivers experiencing issues as their quest for the title gets underway.

Chevrolet off to abysmal start to playoffs

While non-playoff drivers AJ Allmendinger (fifth), Kyle Busch (eighth) and Carson Hocevar (ninth) finished inside the top 10 for Chevrolet, you have to go all the way back to Ross Chastain in 11th to find the first playoff driver for the manufacturer.

The Hendrick quartet of Chase Elliott (17th), Kyle Larson (19th), Byron (21st) and Bowman (31st), in addition to Austin Dillon (23rd) and Shane van Gisbergen (32nd), were nowhere to be found by the conclusion of the race.

Through pit road setbacks, untimely cautions or simply a lack of execution, it was not a great start to the playoffs for each of them, especially Byron, who led the first 243 laps in the spring race at Darlington. However, considering Austin Dillon (-8) and Bowman (-19) are the only two of the bunch below the current cutline, it could have been a lot worse.