Chase Briscoe Reveals Illness After Near-Win in NASCAR's All-Star Race

Chase Briscoe went out and earned a very strong race result in NASCAR's All-Star Race at Dover Motor Speedway. The No. 19 driver for Joe Gibbs Racing finished 2nd, earning the $100,000 prize for him and his team. Denny Hamlin ultimately caught Briscoe on the final run, causing the win to be lost and the 2nd place finish to be written.

Unbeknownst to us fans, Briscoe had a rough week leading up to the race. In a post-race interview with Speedway Digest, Briscoe confirmed that he had been dealing with a stomach bug for the past 2-3 days. "(I) didn't know how today was truthfully going to go." Dover, Delaware, reached a high of 85 degrees in the afternoon, with the race starting at 1:00 PM, rather than NASCAR's usual later-afternoon start times.

An Up-and-Down Week for Chase Briscoe

To begin the All-Star Weekend, the Cup Series featured its longest practice session of the season, which ran 90 minutes long. In that session, Briscoe found ill will, brushing his car up against the outer wall. Luckily, his car was relatively fine, and Briscoe took to qualifying mostly unaffected. Briscoe finished 25th/36 cars in the Pit Crew Challenge on Saturday afternoon.

The NASCAR All-Star Race was run in 3 separate segments, each officiated as its own race, per NASCAR. Briscoe began segment No. 1 in 16th place, in which his average result between the two 75-lap segments earned Briscoe a strong 2nd-place start in the final 200-lap segment.

A day that began towards the middle of the field thus put Briscoe up on the front row, next to his teammate, Denny Hamlin. The duo ran side-by-side for most of the 200-lap event. A stomach-battled Briscoe left the final pit cycle with just under 60 laps to go, and he took over the lead from his pal, Hamlin.

As the broadcast would continue to emphasize, Hamlin did seem to have the better car, especially on the long run (>20 laps). On lap 322/350, Hamlin ultimately made the pass on Briscoe. However, he did not pull away from the No. 19 car. Hamlin only won the race by 0.887 seconds.

Briscoe's ability to battle through an illness, plus a poor race start, was profound. He completes a very strong finish to the first half of the season, which began very slowly, with back-to-back last-place finishes at one point.

The race did not count towards the driver's points standings. Nonetheless, Briscoe earned $100,000 in prize money, and in the standings, Briscoe sits in 17th place - 1 spot outside of the bubble (6 points). He will be fully expected to snag a race win over the next 3 months, or so. D

espite being outside the playoff picture, Briscoe, who will now also be healthy for next week's Coca-Cola 600, will look to secure his first 2026 race win. He is widely expected to make it into the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, as others, such as Shane van Gisbergen and Austin Cindric, look to hold the door open for Briscoe for the time being.

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This story was originally published May 17, 2026 at 3:19 PM.