Chase Briscoe passed Bubba Wallace on the final lap for a win at Talladega Superspeedway that advanced the Joe Gibbs Racing star to his first Championship 4 appearance.

With the overtime victory, Briscoe joined teammate Denny Hamlin in the title race at Phoenix Raceway.

Todd Gilliland finished second, followed by Ty Gibbs, Bubba Wallace and Cole Custer as Briscoe was the only playoff driver to finish in the top five.

It was a disastrous final lap for Hendrick Motorsports, which held the top two spots on the final restart with William Byron and Kyle Larson running side by side.

But Larson ran out of fuel on the final lap and finished 26th, and Byron finished 25th afte spinning off Turn 4 while running in second.

Chase Elliott was the first playoff driver to encounter major trouble.

The seven-time Most Popular Driver was collected in a nine-car crash on Lap 52 that started in Turn 3 with a mistimed bump by Erik Jones to leader Noah Gragson. AJ Allmendinger then was bumped in the right rear by Gragson, shooting his No. 16 Chevrolet into a heavy right-front impact with the outside wall.

As black smoke poured from his heavily damaged car, Allmendinger climbed from the cockpit and took a moment to lie on the asphalt while waiting for safety workers. He gingerly walked to an ambulance under his own power.

“I feel all right,” Allmendinger told NBC Sports’ Dillon Welch after exiting the infield care center. “It knocked the breath out of me. As I stopped it, I felt like the car was catching on fire, so got out and tried to get my breath back. Feel OK now. I’ll probably be sore. A hard hit for my old body.
“Proud of our guys. Got it up front there. I kind of make these decisions after the pit stop, when you get to the front, maybe I’ll go run to the end of the stage, and I think we were leading there. Joey (Logano) was doing a really good job pushing me in the right areas. I felt we could direct both lines. I had Noah next to me and looked like Noah got turned getting in the corner, and it turned me straight up into the fence. So it’s disappointing. It’s why I hate this place. But it’s part of this racing. At least we were up front for a little bit there. Sucks to have it happen so early. But at the end of the day, I get to kiss (wife) Tara and (son) Aero, and I’ll be a little sore. Other than that, just disappointing. Always expect the worst here and hope for the best, and today we got the worst.”

Gragson said the push from Jones was too much to handle while controlling his lane from first.

“You usually get those pushes late in the race in the third stage, but he was just pushing hard,” Gragson said. “It’s unfortunate. The back straightaway here is really rough, and I was pushed in the wrong area and started wheelbarrowing down the backstretch before he caught me.”

Elliott finished last because of the damage to his No. 9 Chevrolet, which will be in a must-win situation in the Round of 8 finale Oct. 26 at Martinsville Speedway. In 2020, Elliott won at Martinsville to advance to the championship round and then captured the title with a win at Phoenix Raceway.
“The assignment is very simple (for Martinsville),” Elliott told Welch. “I don’t know about the crash. I saw someone get turned sideways. Just trying to get slowed up like normal and ended up getting turned sideways and slid into some people, and they slid back into me. I hate it. I felt like we had ourselves in a good spot before the cycle. I didn’t feel we executed the cycle very well. That put us back in the back again. I’m not sure if that would have helped us miss the wreck or not. All that’s very circumstantial.

“It is what it is. I can’t change it now. Just all eyes on Martinsville and try to go up there and get a win.”

Austin Cindric, Justin Haley, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Austin Dillon and Chris Buescher also were involved in the wreck.

The caution set up a two-lap dash to the yellow that ended Stage 1, and only three playoff drivers were in the top 10 to earn points at Lap 60: Ryan Blaney (fourth), Joey Logano (sixth) and Christopher Bell (10th).

Stage 1 winner: Ty Gibbs

Stage 2 winner: Chase Briscoe

Next: Sunday, Oct. 26, 2 p.m. ET at Martinsville Speedway on NBC on Peacock

WILL BE UPDATED