Chase Briscoe holds off Joe Gibbs
Racing teammate Denny Hamlin to win at Pocono
[June 23, 2025]
By DAN GELSTON
LONG POND, Pa. (AP) — Chase Briscoe got the cold facts when the
third-generation driver's career took an unexpected turn, leaving
his lame-duck NASCAR team for the sport's most coveted available
seat with powerhouse Joe Gibbs Racing.
The message was clear at JGR — home of five Cup driver titles and a
perennial contender to win another one.
“You don't make the playoffs,” Briscoe said, “you don't race in this
car anymore.”
The Toyotas were better at JGR, sure. So were the championship
standards set by Joe Gibbs and the rest of the organization.
“It's been a lot of work,” Briscoe's crew chief James Small said.
“From where he came from, there wasn’t much accountability. Nobody
was holding his feet to the fire. That’s probably been a big wake-up
call for him.”
Briscoe's eyes are wide open now, a first-time winner for JGR and,
yes, he is indeed playoff bound.
Briscoe returned to victory lane Sunday at Pocono Raceway,
stretching the final drops of fuel down the stretch to hold off
Hamlin for his third career Cup victory and first with his new race
team.
“I've only won three races in the Cup Series, right? But this is by
far the least enjoyable just because it's expected now,” Briscoe
said. “You have to go win. Where at SHR, you really felt like you
surprised the world if you won.”
Briscoe raced his way into an automatic spot in NASCAR’s playoffs
with the win and gave the No. 19 Toyota its first victory since 2023
when Martin Truex Jr. had the ride. Briscoe lost his job at the end
of last season at Stewart-Haas Racing when the team folded and he
was tabbed to replace Truex — almost a year to the day for his win
at Pocono — in the four-car JGR field.
Hamlin, who holds the track record with seven wins, appeared on the
brink of reeling in Briscoe over the final, thrilling laps only to
have not enough in the No. 11 Toyota to snag that eighth Pocono win.
“It was just so hard to have a guy chasing you, especially the guy
that's the greatest of all time here," Briscoe said.
Briscoe made his final pit stop on lap 119 of the 160-lap race,
while Hamlin — who returned after missing last week's race following
the birth of his son — made his final stop on 120. Hamlin's team
radioed to him that they believed Briscoe would fall about a
half-lap short on fuel — only for the first-year JGR driver to win
by 0.682 seconds.
“The most nervous I get is when two of our cars are up front,” Gibbs
said.
Gibbs now has Hamlin, Bell and Briscoe in the playoff field.
“It's definitely more work but it’s because they’re at such a high
level,” Briscoe said. “Even racing with teammates that are winning
has been a big adjustment for me.”
Briscoe, who won an Xfinity Series race at Pocono in 2020, raced to
his third career Cup victory and first since Darlington in 2024.
Briscoe has been on bit of a hot streak, and had his fourth top-10
finish over the last six races, including a seventh-place finish in
last week’s ballyhooed race in Mexico City.
He became the 11th driver to earn a spot in the 16-driver field with
nine races left until the field is set and made a winner again of
crew chief James Small. Small stayed on the team through Truex's
final winless season and Briscoe's winless start to this season.
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Chase Briscoe celebrates with a burnout after winning a NASCAR Cup
Series auto race at Pocono Raceway, Sunday, June 22, 2025, in Long
Pond, Pa. (AP Photo/Derik Hamilton)
“It's been a tough couple of years,” Small said.
“We've never lost belief, any of us.”
Hamlin finished second. Ryan Blaney, Chris Buescher and Chase
Elliott completed the top five.
Briscoe, raised a dirt racer in Indiana, gave JGR its 18th Cup
victory at Pocono.
“I literally grew up racing my sprint car video game in a Joe Gibbs
Racing Home Depot uniform,” Briscoe said. “To get Coach in victory
lane after them taking a chance on me, it’s so rewarding truthfully.
Just a big weight off my shoulders. I’ve been telling my wife the
last two weeks, I have to win. To finally come here and do it, it
has been a great day.”
The race was delayed 2 hours, 10 minutes by rain and the conditions
were muggy by the time the green flag dropped. Briscoe led 72 laps
and won the second stage.
Briscoe wrote before the race on social media, “Anybody going from
Pocono to Oklahoma City after the race Sunday?” The Pacers fan — he
bet on the team to win the NBA title — wasn't going to make it to
Game 7 of the NBA Finals.
He'll certainly settle for a ride to victory lane.
Clean race
Carson Hocevar made a clean pass of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and two
feuding drivers battled without incident on restarts as they
appeared to race in peace after a pair of recent wrecks on the track
threatened to spill into Pocono.
Stenhouse’s threat to beat up his racing riva l after last weekend’s
race in Mexico City but cooler heads prevailed back in the United
States. Hocevar finished 18th and Stenhouse 30th.
Ouch
There was a minor scare on pit road when AJ Allmendinger struck a
tire in the carrier's hand with his right front side and sent it
flying into the ribs of another team's crew member in the pit ahead
of him. Jonpatrik Kealey, the rear tire changer on Shane van
Gisbergen's race team, was knocked on all fours but finished work on
van Gisbergen's pit stop.
Brake time
Bubba Wallace, Michael McDowell and Riley Herbst all had their races
spoiled by brake issues.
“It was a scary feeling for sure,” Herbst said. “I was just starting
to get tight, just a bad adjustment on my part. Getting into (turn)
one, the brakes just went to the floor. A brake rotor exploded and I
was along for the ride.”
Up next
NASCAR heads to Atlanta. Christopher Bell won the first race at the
track this season in March.
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