On a restart on Lap 103 (six laps remaining) in the Bank of America Roval 400, Brad Keselowski crashed into the Turn 1 wall. Running in second, Kyle Larson also crashed, collecting Kyle Busch, William Byron and Paul Menard.
“The whole field went down into Turn 1, it looked like and we all went straight,” Keselowski said on NBC after leaving the infield care center. “Maybe we all overdrove it, or maybe the track had something on it. I don’t know. … I got in the corner. I got into it hard, but I didn’t feel like I got into it too hard. It just locked up and I couldn’t get the tire to unlock. I felt really, really dumb until I got into the care center and saw everyone did the same thing.”
Keselowski was racing in a backup car after sustaining damage in practice on Saturday.
“We’d just been out there the longest we had been on tires and I guess all of us are just stupid. Don’t know where to brake for the corner considering what our tires looked like,” Busch said.
Larson did significant suspension damage and is unlikely to finish on the lead lap. He went from racing for the lead to battling to make repairs quickly enough to stay inside the Top 12 in points. Larson kept his damaged car running until the end and advanced on a tie-breaker with Jimmie Johnson.
Larson hit the wall twice between Turn 14 and the finish line.
Thirty-one cars were on the lead lap at the time of the accident.
Aric Almirola, who was near the 12th-place bubble to make Round 2 of the playoffs was also involved, but did less damage than Larson. Almirola pitted to make repairs after the incident.