Chase Briscoe recaps battle with William Byron for lead at Iowa Corn 350: 'Just kind of died'

William Byron had to save hard on fuel at the end of the Iowa Corn 350 and for a minute it looked like Chase Briscoe would surely catch him. Then Briscoe’s run just sort of fizzled out.

He would finish in second place, the third time in the last four weeks he has done so. He’s been close, but the second win of the season just hasn’t materialized yet.

Briscoe explained what happened late in the run that prevented him from catching Byron. It wasn’t poor strategy or bad driving.

“There at the end I thought I was running William down,” Briscoe told the USA broadcast after the race. “I thought I was really in the catbird seat there. I just got there and kind of stalled out. I kind of experienced that when I was leading earlier. I caught the back of the field and kind of same thing. As soon as I got there I kind of died. So, unfortunate, you’re just kind of limited where you can go with the repave and everything.”

Chase Briscoe never could completely close the gap on Byron and the race ended without much drama. Byron was close on fuel but made it home, eventually running through the last of his tank on his victory burnout.

For Briscoe, the question becomes about finishing now. He’s been on the cusp of a win in three of the last four weeks, only to come up empty each time.

“I don’t know. Sonoma we were just, nobody had anything for SVG. Then Dover I definitely felt like I could have potentially won that one if I was a little more aggressive,” Chase Briscoe said. “Then today I felt like I was kind of second best there at the end. And even if there was another five laps I was probably going to run four. So I just kind of died there at the end of the run. I don’t know. We’ve been in position enough, running second like that you’re going to end up winning some of them. It just hasn’t went our way the last three or four of them. So hopefully next week it will be that way.”

In any case, Chase Briscoe was proud enough of the result. His place in the playoffs is already locked in, and there are few drivers running as consistently as he is right now.

“But yeah, overall great finish for our Bass Pro Shops Toyota,” Briscoe said. “It was cool. Johnny was here and I was wanting to win with him here, but for us to end up second was a good recovery. Our day kind of got flipped upside down whenever that caution came out, trapped us. I was able to rebound. So congrats to William, he did a really good job, and go on to the next one.”

Chase Briscoe did also issue an apology to Tyler Reddick and Christopher Bell after catching them with some contact that spun out both drivers. He explained.

“First off just want to apologize to the 45 and the 20,” he said. “That was just a really bone-headed move on my part. Got in there and got loose and ruined their day. That’s 100% on me.”