In what has been described as the hottest ticket on the schedule, the Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway (June 28) promised to live up to the hype of hosting the first round of the NASCAR Cup Series In-Season Challenge, with several fans filling out brackets for the inaugural tournament.
Before the race reached halfway, the majority of those brackets have went up in ashes.
Shortly after a multi-car incident ended stage one, involving drivers such as Christopher Bell and Ryan Blaney, a massive, 20-plus-car pileup was sparked as soon as stage two commenced on lap 69.
With race leaders Chase Elliott and Chris Buescher lifting as they prepared to enter turn 3, an accordion took place behind them, with Denny Hamlin getting into the back of John Hunter Nemechek, igniting a scene of sparks, smoke and destroyed race cars.
The accident swallowed up race favorites, including the bracket’s top-seeded Hamlin, Joey Logano, Kyle Larson, William Byron and many other heavy-hitters.
“Basically, what I saw there, I didn’t realize there were that many cars in it, but it wrecked the whole field,” said Logano, who sat on pole for the race. “I still don’t know exactly how it started. It wasn’t the best of replays, but it was total chaos. Cars were sideways and on the brakes. I got hit from every corner possible. I was right in the middle of the whole thing. It’s a real bummer. What do you do? It’s just part of the game sometimes. It’s just the crappy part of our racing sometimes. You get caught up in something you couldn’t do anything about.”
Byron entered the race as a two-time conqueror on the newer configuration, but quickly ran out of options in the middle of the chaos.
“There wasn’t really a whole lot I could see,” Byron said. “I was kind of catching the No. 22 (Joey Logano) with a little bit of a run. All the guys at the front had pitted during the stage break and cycled to the mid-20s. We were just running a great race in the top-five. They all stacked up and at that point, I went right a little bit; the wreck was already happening and I just kind of got shoved into it.”
Chase Briscoe entered Atlanta as the reigning Cup winner, fresh off his first victory with Joe Gibbs Racing a week ago at Pocono Raceway. His efforts to go back-to-back were foiled by the accident, however, and despite efforts to repair his No. 19 Toyota, NASCAR ultimately ruled the car could not return to the track.
“Yeah, I don’t know how bad our damage was,” Briscoe said. “They were fixing it, and we were about ready to go, and I guess NASCAR came over there and saw that our chassis was broke or bent or something and were like, you can’t go back out. So, kind of a waste of 30 minutes working on it. Just unfortunate night for our Bass Pro Shops Toyota. Kind of missed the balance at the beginning and was behind, and then that big wreck – had nowhere to go. Looking forward to two road courses coming up. I think our road course program has been pretty good.”
Consequently, several drivers saw their chances of collecting a million bucks for winning the In-Season Challenge dashed, paving the way for a few Cinderella stories to sneak through to the next round at the Chicago Street Race.
Entering his fifth year with Frontstretch, Luken Glover is the author of The Underdog House, shedding light on the motivation and performance of NASCAR's dark horse teams as they strive to fight to the top. Additionally, Glover reports for the site at various events, and he contributes in the video editing department.
A 2023 graduate of the University of the Cumberlands, Glover is a middle school math and PE teacher, as well as a basketball coach. He is passionate about serving in his church, playing/coaching a wide variety of sports, and researching motorsports history.