Playoff Field Shaken By Largest Recorded Wreck in Cup Series History
Sunday’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway was filled to the brim with high-intensity superspeedway racing, with the field spending several laps running three and four-wide throughout the entire pack.
With the on-track product as palpable as ever on the superspeedways, especially in the era of the NextGen car, it was only a matter of time until ‘The Big One’ reared its ugly head in the closing stages of the event.
When the dreaded consequence of close-quarters pack racing hit, the accident no doubt lived up to its nickname, collecting nearly three-quarters of the NASCAR Cup Series field in one heap at the end of the backstretch.
IT'S NOT JUST A BIG ONE. IT'S THE HUGE ONE!
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) October 6, 2024
Nearly the entire field involved in this crash at Talladega! #NASCAR
📺 : NBC pic.twitter.com/poJkMCPuIn
The wreck began with race-leader Austin Cindric, who had managed to build a gap over the second car on the inside lane, Brad Keselowski, while attempting to lap the No. 38 of Todd Gilliland. As Keselowski closed up on Cindric, the bump was hefty and sent the 2022 Daytona 500 winner sideways.
“I just got turned at the front of the field. Unfortunately, that’s how Daytona ended for us and I think what that says is we’ve got really fast race cars and great execution,” said Austin Cindric. “As the leader, I was trying to be as predictable as possible as far as taking pushes and it’s just a real shame.”
Cindric darted towards the outside wall attempting to catch his No. 2 Ford Mustang Dark Horse, but was unsuccessful, side-swiping Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. and bouncing in front of the pack, which featured at least 30 drivers.
“It was just an interesting sequence of events,” Keselowski said about the late-race wreck. “The 38 car came. He was a slow car for whatever reason and he stayed on the bottom and we had the Ford train pulling the bottom and when he did that it broke us all up and when we rubber banded back together it just snapped. It’s a tough deal. I was getting pushed from behind and I ran into the 2 car and he spun out. It just wasn’t a good sequence of events for all of us.”
The list of drivers involved was extensive, and included NASCAR Cup Series playoff drivers Tyler Reddick, Alex Bowman, Chase Elliott, Austin Cindric, Joey Logano, Chase Briscoe, Daniel Suarez, and Christopher Bell. That was just eight of the 28 drivers involved in the wreck.
“I was just shoving the 21 and I knew we were in the middle of the back straightaway and then it felt like everybody stopped,” Briscoe said post-race. “Surprisingly, we didn’t hit each other super hard and it felt like everybody was gonna be fine and we were gonna keep going straight and then all of a sudden they all started wrecking from each way. I haven’t seen it, but we’ll just go on to the next one.”
It’s the largest recorded wreck in NASCAR Cup Series history, a record that prior to Sunday’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway had been set in the 2003 Aaron’s 499 at the same racetrack.
“Everyone was just shoving each other. It’s what you expect coming down to the end of the race. It kind of felt like we were in such a good spot though with the 6, the 2, myself, the 21,” said Joey Logano. “I was not in the position to win the race where I was, but I felt like I was in a good enough spot to where I could get a top-five and if they started crossing each other up coming to the checkered I was on the bottom and things were gonna work fairly well for us. I actually thought the bottom was the safest place to be, but the 2 got sideways and there I was.”
When the dust finally settled and cars stopped wrecking, the entrance to Turn 3 looked like Dale Earnhardt, Jr.’s race car graveyard, with drivers having to wait for a push from the AMR Safety Team to get back to pit road due to their cars having four flat tires.
Granted, whether drivers would be allowed to be pushed back to their pit stalls was an entirely different conversation, one that for the third time in the last five weeks, has caused a great deal of confusion amongst competitors and viewers.
But, that’s a story for another day…
