NASCAR CUP SERIES: SOUTH POINT 400

October 4, 2026

Chase Briscoe

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by tonight's winner of the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Chase Briscoe.

Chase, to keep with the Vegas theme, did you see this win in the cards this weekend?

CHASE BRISCOE: Man, that was a good little dad joke there in a way.

Yeah, I mean, I definitely felt like that, you know, all the -- everywhere we go I feel like we have got a good shot to get the win, but certainly the mile and a halves have been where we've been really, really strong.

Yeah, after winning Chicagoland and then going to Kansas, kind of the next mile and a half after that and having the run that we did, I knew that we would be strong. Truthfully, I didn't feel amazing about it I would say after practice. I knew I was good, but my teammates I thought were really good and just needed a little bit more.

James and the group did an amazing job to make it better. Yeah, just was able to truthfully execute. I feel like a lot of the guys that were going to be competitors kind of eliminated themselves or just made their life way harder. We were just able to kind of maintain our track position and had a really fast car obviously and was able to ultimately hold on.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Talk about the final laps there when you were having Larson and Bubba and Reddick all kind of closing up on you and what you were thinking?

CHASE BRISCOE: Yeah, truthfully, I would say with, like, I don't know, we pitted. It was probably 35 to go, and Bubba was able to kind of hang with me. I truthfully thought I was in big trouble.

I thought my car was just not as good as what it had been, you know, really the whole race, especially on the short run, which was kind of my strong suit. I was hoping that that would pay off on the long run because that's where I would typically die on the long run. I would have a three, four second lead, and they would come back to me at the end.

I knew I would hopefully be better starting off that much tighter. I was worried because I wasn't able to build a gap like he was every other time. If I did die, I wasn't really going to have much to lean on.

The traffic was just so thick. There was a pack of seven or eight of them that were literally on top of each other. I made a pretty late block on Bubba into one. I mean, he was an inch away from getting me. If that happens, I feel like I probably don't win. Once you lose the clean air, it was going to be hard.

Yeah, I thought I was racing the 23, and I thought I was racing the 45, and then I thought I was racing the 5.

It was just changing so much. You know, as I ran there at the end, I kept getting kind of by one or two of the lap cars, and then so slowly I'm getting a little bit better air. Yeah, I don't know. I just was trying to stay unpredictable, truthfully.

In turn one and two I thought was going to be the big spot where if I didn't do a good corner, they were just going to have a really good chance to get by me. I was just trying to be unpredictable with Kyle.

Three and four I felt like if I just hit the bottom. It was going to be hard if I hit a perfect corner for them to get a big enough run to do something with me. I was able to kind of go up to the top a couple of times and protect. But yeah, ultimately, it was a wild ending just because there was so many comers and goers, and you didn't know who was going to be doing what.

With four to go, I had a pretty big gap on Kyle, and I thought I was good, and he just started hauling the mail again and caught me. It was a little deja vu like last week, truthfully.

Q. You were talking about change. Last week seemed like after you lost the race it was, like, oh, man, my title hopes are up. That was says my one shot there. How do you feel now that you've gotten to victory lane and gained some points?

CHASE BRISCOE: It's still a long way to go. I was telling one of the reporters earlier, I have a couple of coals in the fire or irons in the fire, but a lot of other guys have way more. I'm definitely still in the mix. It's just sickening.

I gave up probably 25 to 30 points at Gateway when Chase blew the rotor underneath me. I made a mistake with four to go on Bristol and went from 5th to th 25th. There's another 20 points. Then obviously last week if I could have won, there's 70 points right there in a matter of four laps that ultimately put me right there for the title fight.

Yeah, just have a long way to go. But, yeah, we're definitely still in it. Larson started 55 back and had a 26 point lead after four and we have five races to go and I'm 83 back, so it's definitely doable.

Q. James in James fashion when asked about the end of the race that if you didn't win, he might be --

CHASE BRISCOE: He was going to kill me.

Q. He said there was going to be murder charges, that he was going to throw you off the top of this building.

CHASE BRISCOE: That sounds right.

Q. I'm curious, when you are racing there at the end, are you thinking -- I mean, are you thinking about, oh what is James going to say, what is the team going to say? What's going through your mind in trying not to lose it?

CHASE BRISCOE: Yeah, I mean, I definitely -- I put the pressure on myself even after last week. You don't want your guys to lose confidence in you. I felt like after last week, like, I drove to the lead, and you lose the race with six to go. I don't really feel like I made a mistake per se last week. I mean, I was just really loose, and I could have done a better job defending Larson, but still, you don't want it to be two weeks in a row where you lose a race in the last five to ten laps. I just feel like your confidence from the team guys, like, in their driver can go away really quickly.

That was more on the back of my mind more than anything. You can't let it happen again. Not like last week I was trying to let it happen. I definitely was aware of that.

Yeah, I mean, if I would have somehow lost the race, I would have been black and blue getting on the plane pretty easily. Yeah, it worked out.

Q. Chase, what are the emotions after this one, because obviously it's a huge win at a huge time of the year. Again, you still have that 84 point deficit. What's that balance between the elation of getting the win, but then the reality of what the points situation is as Chase's championship?

CHASE BRISCOE: I would say it's honestly still encouraging. Any time you with win in the Cup Series, it's a big deal, whether you are in the chase or not in the chase, whatever. I said it last week when I didn't win, I gave up my chance to win the championship. Certainly today if I wouldn't have, like, you're just getting to the point where there's not enough races left to make up that many points.

Look, it's still going to be extremely, extremely difficult, but I at least kept myself in the ball game. If you're 120 out with five -- it's just -- I mean, it's mathematically possible, but it's just so hard to do that.

Yeah, just kept ourselves in the ball game. That's ultimately all you can ask for when you've had kind of the start that we've had is to every week when you go home on Monday and you want to wake up, you want to at least be mathematically still possible. Some guys can't say that right now. We at least can do that.

Q. I don't know how aware you were of Larson's issues to start the race and --

CHASE BRISCOE: Yeah, I asked James, and he yelled at me about asking, so I wasn't sure what happened. What did happen?

Q. Well, he just started way off. They had to make a huge adjustment, and it took, like, 26 seconds under green or something, so they lost a whole lap.

CHASE BRISCOE: Oh, wow. Caution saved him.

Q. That helped. Is it crazy to you that it looked like they left the door open for a little bit and then still at the end, like, there he is? It's sort of like old 48 team kind of vibes, you know?

CHASE BRISCOE: Yeah, definitely. It definitely is. Yeah, when I was leading, I knew Bubba was obviously in second, but I could see, like, a glimmer of neon yellow. I couldn't tell in it was Blaney or Larson. I kept thinking, man, if that's Larson, like, he's got to be really, really good to be able to go from the back, drive all the way back through the field. I saw kind of a peek of him in 10 to go, and I thought, yep, that's the 5.

They're a championship-caliber team. They won the championship last year. They won in the past, and that's what ultimately championship teams do. They can rally from stuff like that.

Yeah, their cars are really, really good right now, as well as ours, and they were -- yeah, I felt like them and a lot of guys, truthfully, eliminated themselves today. There was a lot of really, really fast race cars that I thought were definitely more than capable of winning the race, and just made mistakes and lost track position. It's just so hard to -- I mean, it took Larson 200-something laps to get back up there where, if he would have never lost it, who knows what happens?

Yeah, I don't know, they're just really good. They're a good team, good driver, and they're going to be in it all the way until the end obviously.

It's a good race pull, Jeff.

Q. (Off microphone.)

CHASE BRISCOE: I'm torn. I feel like it was not a very good race until the end. I was going to say like 68 to 70, but I feel like that's probably too high.

I thought the ending was compelling, but that's from my seat. I don't know. I thought it was intense, but maybe it didn't look that way on TV. I thought the lap traffic deal was super intense, but I don't know if TV portrayed that.

Q. With all the tributes for Kyle Busch this weekend, how important was it to get a win?

CHASE BRISCOE: Yeah, I mean, it's obviously special to win anywhere, but to be able to do it in Las Vegas, there's been a couple of weekends throughout the year where I would say just the KB's presence was just there a little heavier. Obviously this weekend with it being in Vegas in his hometown, there was definitely a significance there and just a void that's missing.

To be able to win here and to do it, that was one of those I feel like -- I don't know -- like if Kyle was in that position, he wouldn't have thrown it away, right? To be able to do something I felt like would have earned his respect is obviously really important.

Then, yeah, on the front stretch to be able to do a bow, it was special for sure. Yeah, just miss him, truthfully. Still doesn't feel real.

Q. In addition to the win, you also swept the stages. What's a performance like that mean during this time of the year in the chase?

CHASE BRISCOE: Yeah, for us -- it's important for anybody, right, no matter where you are at in the championship. For us, we had to do that. Winning the race would have been great, but if you don't get the stage sweeps, then you're just giving up points. For us to be able to literally maximize outside of the fastest lap, I mean, that's really all you could ask for.

How the first stage kind of played out, the 11 and the 5 didn't get stage points, so I knew that. That was 10 points right there that I took off, where if they would have ran second or third, you don't make up the ground as much.

Stage points are extremely critical, and especially in our situation just every point is going to matter. It does for everybody, but when you are trying to cut into a gap, you have to have outscore guys, and we were able to do that.

Q. Last week Kyle ran the table and got max points. You were real close today. Any thoughts of going and getting that fastest lap?

CHASE BRISCOE: Yeah, I mean, I was trying to go as fast as I could. I don't know when it happened. It seems like typically it happens lap one or two. If you're not on the front row, you're just not going to do it.

Yeah, I don't really know what we could have done to get it, honestly.

Q. With an $11.2 million purse, can we see Chase Briscoe Racing expanding to a three sprint car team next year?

CHASE BRISCOE: I don't think so. Not currently. Being a car owner is tough, let me tell you. We've torn up a lot of stuff here lately. Yeah, hopefully we can get it turned around. It definitely feels way different when you're the owner and stuff wrecks or breaks or whatever. When you're the driver, you become numb to it of what it really costs to do this. When you're the owner, you are not numb to it, I can assure you.

Q. Now that we're halfway through the chase, how do you handicap the final five races and assessing your chances of making up those points?

CHASE BRISCOE: When you look at ours, truthfully, you're going to have to have something go right at Talladega. We've used so many mulligans, right? You just can't have a bad race at Talladega. That's where you're going to see the most, I would say, volatility among those top guys.

Just have to hope that it goes your way at Talladega. If you can come out of there gaining 20, 30 points, then it's a little bit more realistic, but it's just so hard on these mile and a halves or short tracks or whatever to make up 20, 30 points on these guys that are contenders for the championship. Just because a bad day is 8th to 10th place, so it's just really hard. Where Talladega, guys could be 30th on back, and if you can win the race or run up front, it makes it way easier to cut into that.

Q. When James and Coach came in here, one thing that Coach really made sure to hammer was your guys' crew with just the consistent high 8s for your pit stops. Talk about the relationship with the team and just how grateful you are for the speed that you guys have had on pit road.

CHASE BRISCOE: Yeah, our pit crew has been absolutely unbelievable. I've never experienced anything like it in my life where, I mean, every pit stop is an 8-second pit stop.

I think it's been like that for 13 or 14 weeks in a row. We have not had a single bad pit stop, knock on wood. It's super fun as a driver when you can get some track position and when you come down pit road, you know you're not going to lose it.

Yeah, I mean, right now the confidence I have in those guys is sky-high. Every time we've come down today, we would beat everybody by 6, 7 car lengths off of pit road. They're just unbelievable right now. That whole group has just done a really good job lately.

Yeah, it's a lot of fun to be behind the wheel when you come down pit road and you know you're going to gain spots every time.

Q. The crew is rolling; driver is rolling. There's no speeding penalties on the track or off the track. Does that add an extra smile this weekend?

CHASE BRISCOE: Yeah, for sure. I'm definitely glad that we didn't speed on pit road here because that's just a day-ender, but also glad I didn't get pulled over coming to the track today. In the spring I did. I definitely was aware where it was at.

I was, like, not -- I was 3-, 4-under the whole time. People were blowing by me, and I'm, like, Oh, you're going to get it. There was no cop there today, but yeah, glad I didn't get a speeding penalty.

Q. Just talking about this track and facility, you know, you think of that win back in 2020 that was delayed, and we have to wait for the Cup race. What does this facility hold in terms of ranks? Is it any emotional value now, or how do you see this track?

CHASE BRISCOE: Yeah, this is truthfully one of the nicest facilities we go to. Just the garage area and the atmosphere is really, really special. Just how the garage layout is, it feels like a big event.

It would be cool to maybe one day even have the championship season-ending race here just because I feel like from an infrastructure standpoint and just the facility in itself is a great track. Yeah, the racetrack puts on really good racing too. You can run all over the place.

This has been one of those places I've always looked forward to coming to. I've always enjoyed it. I wouldn't say it's my favorite track, but it's certainly in the top 10. It's been a really good place for me career-wise.

Q. How did you think a season finale would look like at Las Vegas someday?

CHASE BRISCOE: Hopefully sold out and hopefully cooler weather, just being in November. Yeah, when you think of Las Vegas, you think of big events. Whether it's NCAA Final Fours or Super Bowl or whatever, this city is just known for hosting big events. Yeah, maybe one day we'll get to that, where.

Obviously this is one of those weather markets that it could probably handle it in November. Yeah, who knows?