Chase Briscoe won the Bank of America 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway by leading the final 62 laps, but came oh so close to losing it on the last one.
Briscoe took the lead from his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell during the final round of pitstops under a yellow flag and didn’t look back until he had no choice.
Bell was running a couple of seconds back most of the way saving fuel, but got the green light to go for it in the closing laps, just as Briscoe started feeling a tire going down and caught up to traffic.
Bell was 1.5 seconds behind with four laps to go and closed it to less than a half-second at the start of the final lap. He went low in the turns while Briscoe went high and the two banged doors coming out of the final turn as Briscoe managed to squeak out the win by .29 seconds.
That’s the second-closest margin in track history behind Jimmie Johnhson’s .27-second victory over Bobby Labonte in the 2005 Coca-Cola 600.
“I hope that was a good race. From my seat there at the end, I don’t know what else you could want from a cat and mouse standpoint,” Briscoe said on the front stretch after the win.
The win was Briscoe’s second in a row and moved him into fourth place in the Chase standings just 65 points behind leader Kyle Larson, who finished sixth, while Bell held on to third place 51 points down and Denny Hamlin’s fifth place finish kept him in second, 49 points back with four races to go. A maximum of 76 points is available at each race for the winner if they also sweep the first two stages and get the fastest lap.
