Briscoe Beats Bell by 0.029 Seconds in a Charlotte Photo Finish Between Team-Mates

The closest finish of the NASCAR season was between two drivers who share a hauler. Chase Briscoe beat Joe Gibbs Racing team-mate Christopher Bell by 0.029 seconds at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday, the pair touching off the final corner before Briscoe’s No. 19 Toyota won the drag race to the line, USA Today reports. Bell had started the day 17th, placed there by the starting-lineup metric he spent the week arguing about, and nearly won anyway.

How did a race Briscoe controlled end in a photo finish?

His car quit on him at the worst moment. Briscoe took the lead on the final restart, helped by a shove from another team-mate, Denny Hamlin, and led the last 57 laps, USA Today reports. With five or six laps left he caught a pack of lapped traffic and the car stopped turning; Briscoe said he felt he was going to knock the wall down at any point, Sports Illustrated reports, and Kickin’ The Tires reports his right-front tyre was cording. Bell, who had led 93 laps himself, closed from more than two seconds back, drove to the inside into turns three and four, and the two made contact coming off the corner. Briscoe got sideways, thought he was going to wreck, and held on by a nose.

Why is everyone invoking Tony Stewart?

Because Briscoe did first. Two weeks ago at Kansas, after surrendering the lead in the final eight laps and finishing fourth, he said his title hopes probably required winning five of the next six races, calling it a little Tony Stewart 2011 run after his childhood hero, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reports. Stewart won five of the ten Chase races that year to steal a championship. Briscoe has since won at Las Vegas and now Charlotte, the first back-to-back victories of his Cup career, and the arithmetic has moved with him: seventh in the standings and 123 points behind after Kansas, fourth and 65 behind after Charlotte. He referred to Stewart again after the race, saying Stewart’s run was pretty unbelievable and that hopefully his own team can do the same thing.

What did the finish cost Bell?

Another almost. Bell’s second place was his eighth runner-up finish of the season, USA Today reports, and for all the laps he led, he left Charlotte having gained only four points on leader Kyle Larson, moving from 55 back to 51 back. The cruellest detail is where he started: 17th, set by the metric formula after rain wiped out qualifying, the same procedure Christopher Bell argued should be replaced by a Sunday-morning session. He drove from there to within 0.029 seconds of the win. His team owner felt the whole thing from the pit box: Joe Gibbs, 85, said his blood pressure and heartbeat accelerate most when two of his own cars are racing each other for a win, USA Today reports. Gibbs Racing cars finished first, second and fifth.

What else happened after the chequered flag?

A slower, pettier fight further back. On the cool-down lap, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. chased down Michael McDowell and hit his car repeatedly on the backstretch, and McDowell responded by spinning Stenhouse in turn three, On3 reports. Stenhouse’s own team co-owner, Brad Daugherty, was on the broadcast watching it happen and joked his way through it before learning his driver started it. Both drivers then spoke calmly on pit road, and Stenhouse told reporter Bob Pockrass that he hit McDowell, McDowell hit him back, and it was not a big deal, Heavy reports. NASCAR, which warned teams this month about conduct that blurs its officiating references, confirmed on Tuesday that neither driver will be penalised, calling the clash the closest a case has come to a penalty without being one. The incident sits in the same garage world as the trade-secret lawsuit Joe Gibbs Racing is fighting with Spire: on track, Gibbs’s team won everything; off it, the sport’s arguments continue.

What does the win mean for the Chase with four races left?

It keeps a long shot alive and mathematically honest. Larson still leads, Hamlin is 49 back, Bell 51 and Briscoe 65, USA Today reports, with Phoenix next on October 18, followed by Talladega, Martinsville and Homestead-Miami. Briscoe’s own assessment was that his team probably needs to win another race or two but has put itself in the ballgame. The form line supports him: three wins this season, eight in his career, and a hold on mile-and-a-half tracks that includes Chicagoland, a second at Kansas, Las Vegas and now Charlotte. Bell, meanwhile, has a different problem to carry to Phoenix, the same one he brought to Charlotte after his Las Vegas power-steering row with Kyle Larson and the wave-around argument that followed Denny Hamlin at the same track: he keeps being the fastest driver not to win the argument at the end.

Update, October 25: Charlotte no longer holds the season’s defining close finish. At Talladega, Kyle Larson won from 11th on the final lap by 0.041 seconds, with NASCAR clearing his yellow-line pass, and the championship picture this article tracked has narrowed to Larson’s 73-point lead with Martinsville left to decide whether he clinches early.