115 laps into the race and 15 laps into second stage at Talladega, complete chaos broke out at the front of the field.
Bubba Wallace was leading the race from the middle lane with Ross Chastain behind him. Chastain was surging forward as he, Ryan Blaney, and Joey Logano were all connected.
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Wallace got hit hard from behind, and slid up the track into Cole Custer, turning Wallace into the outside wall. The cars then came back down the track, collecting most of the field from the third row on back in a massive accident.
The race was immediately red-flagged for cleanup, and several cars could not drive away and had to be towed back.
Wallace reacts to crashing from the lead
Wallace was unable to continue, telling NASCAR on FOX outside the infield care center: “Damn, nothing to show for it in the first stage. Just trying to figure out the strategy stuff, and just hate it for our team. Don’t want to have any DNFs, we have two now. Just a bummer, but we got to figure out how to be pushed better. So, I take responsibility on that. We’ll have a good debrief and figure out what we can do to make our Toyotas be pushed better, and maybe not have that happen.”
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This is the complete list of drivers involved, per NASCAR on FOX, with about 25 collected: Cindric, A. Dillon, Larson, Keselowski, Suarez, Busch, Hamlin, Blaney, Briscoe, Berry, Logano, Wallace, Byron, Love, Custer, Nemechek, Jones, Gase, Reddick, Ware, Gibbs, Finchum, McDowell, Hocevar, and Zilisch.
The most seriously damaged cars, which either lost multiple laps or went behind the wall included Larson, Logano, Blaney, Wallace, Keselowski, Finchum, Custer, Gase, Briscoe, Zilisch, and Byron.
Only 20 cars remain on the lead lap, and some of those have minor damage. Gibbs was among those who attempted to continue, but he blew a tire and slammed the wall soon after the race restarted.
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