Chase Briscoe, Stewart Haas Racing's Cinderella playoff run ends at Charlotte

The glass slipper finally fell off the foot of Chase Briscoe on Sunday afternoon.

An early flat tire put Briscoe behind the eight ball at the Charlotte Roval, and a steering issue ended up knocking the No. 14 team out of Sunday's race and the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.

Briscoe entered the event 32 points below the cut line and was in need of a win to advance, but he never even got a chance to battle at the front of the field.

Briscoe won his way into the postseason in spectacular fashion at Darlington on Sept. 1 and methodically punched his ticket to the Round of 12 after a solid opening round. However, the finishes of 24th and 30th at Kansas and Talladega forced Briscoe into a tough situation at Charlotte.

"The steering rack or something broke, I'm not really sure what happened to be honest with you," Briscoe said. "I know that realistically, we probably weren't going to move on anyway with how bad our car was. But one of those restarts in turn 7, we all kind of get stacked up and they all stopped in front of me. It ripped the wheel out of my hand. I could turn to the left, but as soon as I got to the right-hander my car just went straight."

"I about hit the wall on the backstretch chicane, then on the frontstretch chicane I hit the No. 3 car because I literally couldn't turn. Unfortunate way for it to all come to an end, but that's part of it. That's part of racing, and we just didn't have a very good three weeks when it all boils down to it."

Briscoe's elimination means Stewart-Haas Racing no longer has a chance to win the Cup Series championship in their final season of operation, though defending Xfinity Series champion Cole Custer remains eligible to win the Xfinity Series title.

Briscoe and SHR have four more races to try and end the team's Cup Series tenure with one final victory.