Chase Briscoe, welcome to the Round of 12.

The newest Toyota driver hasn’t had long under the red and white banner, but he led the stable for 310 laps at the Southern 500. An absolutely dominant performance from Briscoe is the crescendo of a symphony that the #19 team has been working on for weeks. He earned many poles, ran numerous laps in the top 5 and only had one win to show for it, until tonight.

If there was a time for everything to start clicking, Briscoe couldn’t have picked a better time. His win locks him into the next round and five of the last eight drivers who won the first race in the playoffs have made the final round. 

Here are some key takeaways from Briscoe’s dominant night.

Them cheatin’ yoders

While Briscoe ruled this race, the only cars that even had a chance at catching him were fellow Toyotas. Including a double top 5 from Legacy Motor Club six of the top seven finishers were Toyotas, with AJ Allmendinger’s Chevy breaking up the party in 5th.

Seriously though, if you’re still on the dating market, find someone who loves you as much as Erik Jones loves Darlington. By far his best run of the season and the place he has two of his three career Cup wins, belong to the track too tough to tame (unless you’re that Jones Boy).

No playoff drivers from other manufacturers finished inside the top 10, with Ross Chastain’s 11th and Austin Cindric’s 12th place finishes all that the rest of the manufacturers can hang their hat on.    

Bowman’s horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day

Alex Bowman barely snuck into the playoffs after a decent, but not flashy year. The #48 team knew they’d be heading into the playoffs without much of a cushion, but this opener looked like a team that was unprepared for the spotlight.

It started with a horrific qualifying effort that saw Bowman starting outside of the top 25, and only got worse from there. The team immediately went off strategy to try and make up track position, but it all went awry in stage two. A 40-second pit stop featuring a flustered pit crew and faulty air gun pinned the Ally Chevrolet two laps down.

While he was able to battle and get those laps back, he finished 31st. Bowman is now tied for last place in the playoffs at 19 points below the cutline, tied with Josh Berry wrecked on the first lap.

Get your pitchforks ready

A NASCAR playoff debate after a controversial elimination, daring today aren’t we? While we aren’t quite there yet, Chase Elliot, who was in the fight for the regular season championship, is only 9 points above the cutline and three time winner Christopher Bell only sits 11 points above.

That’s nothing and can be erased with one bad stage, let alone a bad race where the #9 or #20 has to leave early. Sure it’s only been one race, but these two had horrible Darlington races when some underdogs, like Chastain and Bubba Wallace, had ideal days. 

In this current format, that’s not good enough and while it might be barely enough to escape the first round, it won’t be enough to advance past the second. However, if Gateway decides to play spoiler, we could be looking at another long offseason of discourse.

It’s nice to NBC you

As I sat down watching the laps wind away and Tyler Reddick attempt the futile act of passing the leader in a Next Gen car, I found my quickly heart beating. I was, dare I say, engaged, excited, even?

I knew how the race was going to end, but the masterful work of Leigh Diffey kept me on the edge of my seat for the entirety of the final laps. A sport like NASCAR needs a voice to keep things level and tell the audience when to get on their feet and cheer. Diffey does that and more, it legitimizes NASCAR as a sport to have him behind the microphone for their disaster of a playoff system.

“This was the race that changed Chase Briscoe’s life last year, and he’s done it again!” Diffey exclaimed as Briscoe crossed the finish line. A perfect line, a perfect delivery from a master of his craft.

Your mind is a Gateway

Next up on the platter of the first round of the playoffs is Gateway, a key turning point in the season. The first of the short, flat ovals that are similar to Phoenix and should clear up the championship picture significantly.

A Penske, Cindric, won the race at the World Wide Technology Raceway last year and the Toyotas struggled. The blue ovals need help after disastrous days from Berry, Logano and Blaney. If they continue to show strength here, it could vault them into an easy Championship 4 appearance.

The green flag drops at Gateway on Sunday, Sept. 7 at 12:00 p.m. PST.