Without crew members, Briscoe prevails to cap Xfinity doubleheader

Chase Briscoe lost much of his team and got a win for them.

Briscoe survived two late cautions and a frantic overtime finish to prevail Sunday in an Xfinity Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway — while adding to a nightmarish weekend for Noah Gragson, who saw a huge lead slip away in the final laps for the second consecutive day.

Briscoe was without crew chief Richard Boswell, car chief Nick Hutchins and engineer D J Vanderley, all of whom began serving four-race suspensions for a safety violation that happened Saturday.

So Briscoe — a big Tony Stewart fan growing up — got Stewart-Haas Racing competition director Greg Zipadelli to fill in as his crew chief and prevailed.

“It’s just a testament to our team,” Briscoe said.

Brandon Jones was second, Ross Chastain was third and A.J. Allmendinger was fourth. Gragson placed fifth, losing not only a race that was in his hands for the second straight day but also the $100,000 “Dash For Cash” bonus that wound up going to Allmendinger instead.

“Guess we’ll go to Talladega and do it again,” Allmendinger said.

Briscoe’s victory capped a historic weekend for the Xfinity cars.

It was the first time that the series

— by any of its names since it was first formed in 1982 — raced on consecutive days at the same track, the obviously odd occurrence happening this year because of all the rescheduling caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The back-to-back at one track is scheduled to occur again July 9 and 10 at Kentucky.