By David Morgan, Associate Editor
CONCORD, N.C. – 0.029 seconds.
That’s all that separated Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Chase Briscoe and Christopher Bell at the finish of Sunday’s Bank of America 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Briscoe looked to have his second NASCAR Cup Series win in a row in the bag as the laps wound down in the fall return to the 1.5-mile oval, but Bell reached down deep and made a race of it, charging his way to his teammate’s rear bumper and the two dueled it out to the finish.
The lead of more than two seconds that Briscoe held over Bell remained steady until the race got down under 10 laps to go, with Briscoe battling lapped traffic and Bell giving chase, the margin closed to 1.5 seconds and then down to within a second with two laps to go.
That margin shrank to a half-second at the white flag and it was going to come down to who could put together the best final lap between the two.
Bell was right on Briscoe’s rear bumper as they charged into Turn 3 for the final time with Briscoe taking the high line and Bell settling in down low with the two still neck and neck off of Turn 4.
As they hurtled onto the frontstretch toward the checkered, Bell and Briscoe made contact, with each of them getting out of shape, but it was Briscoe that was able to maintain enough forward momentum to streak across the line just ahead of Bell for the victory.
Teammates tangle at the finish! pic.twitter.com/M6nmdOCfZC
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 11, 2026
“When Christopher (Bell) got into me off of (Turn) 4, I kind of got sideways, and I thought I was going to wreck,” Briscoe explained of how the finish played out.
“I’m like I am going to get beat to the line, so I assume he got really sideways too. My right front was coming apart. Another lap I thought we were going to blow a right front tire. I’m glad that we won, but I wish they weren’t so stressful. I don’t have very much hair to begin with, but I’m definitely losing it really quickly.
“Just an awesome day and really cool to end up in Victory Lane.”
As Briscoe executed his victory burnout on the frontstretch, Bell climbed from his car on pit road with a look of shock on his face at what had transpired, knowing he had come so close to a second win in the Chase only to have to settle for a runner-up result.
“I don’t know what happened that he slowed down, but yeah, I got a lot closer than I thought I was going to,” said Bell.
“I think I’m just in shock right now. I didn’t think it was going to end like that.”
Ryan Blaney finished the day in third-place, overcoming an early race pit road penalty, followed by Josh Berry as the top non-Chase driver, and Denny Hamlin rounding out the top-five finishers.
Kyle Larson brought home a sixth-place result, maintaining control of the points lead with four races remaining in the Chase, which increased to a 49-point advantage over Hamlin and 51 points over Bell.
“I won’t feel comfortable until it’s over,” Larson said after his worst finish in the Chase thus far. “Obviously, (Chase) Briscoe winning and having a good day; you can take big chunks out of it if you win.
“We’re going to go to some tracks where others are really good coming up, so we just have to keep putting together days like we did today. We weren’t the fastest, but we got good points.”
Bell added afterwards that even with his runner-up finish, it’s going to take more than that to overcome their gap to the points leader over the next four weeks.
“It doesn’t do any good in the grand scheme of things. I came in negative 55…and I’m leaving negative 51, so that ain’t going to do it,” Bell said.
With the win, Briscoe is now 65 points back heading to next weekend’s race at Phoenix.
Briscoe’s crew chief James Small said that his team has to “step on their throats” over the next month as they look to chase down the points lead and go for the title.
“You’ve got to keep winning. It’s still a big gap,” said Small. “If they’re just consistent and score the points they need to, even if we go and win the next three, it’s still very hard to close that gap. Yeah, I’m not going to let off the throttle pedal right now.”
Small added that his driver, while holding a calm demeanor outside the car, has the right mentality to follow through on that edict from atop the pit box.
“Dude, he puts his helmet on and he’s silent, but he’s like a silent assassin. He may not show it on the outside, but I know deep down he wants to win as bad as us. We’ve been on his ass to make sure that he hates finishing second as much as we do.”
To his credit, Briscoe agreed with that assessment, noting that he would need to be a killer behind the wheel to get to where they want to be by season’s end.
“You can step on their throat, you can be a nice guy, though, outside of the race car, but in the race car I think you have to be a killer,” said Briscoe.
“For us, that’s the whole approach, is just going and — I think just trying to dominate races. Like I was saying earlier, that’s the only way you’re going to cut into the gap is by winning races.
“If you just run second or third and Larson runs second or third with you, like you’re not going to gain 64 points in four weeks. Yeah, just have to go win races and just have to be ultra aggressive truthfully and try to do everything we can in our power, and if it’s enough, it’ll be enough at the end.”
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