Cars piled into one another, virtually blocking the track, as drivers who were pacing themselves and drivers who were on the move slammed and spun into a massive crash Saturday night at Daytona.
Just past halfway in the NASCAR Sprint Cup's Coke Zero 400, a host of top contenders found themselves with heavy damage to their cars.
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Jamie McMurray made contact with Jimmie Johnson, then came down and into the side of teammate Kyle Larson, sparking a crash that pulled in a multitude of cars. Dale Earnhardt Jr., known for his restrictor-plate racing prowess, piled into Danica Patrick as the wreck evolved. Other cars piled into one another, strung out over the width of the track, as sparks flew.
"I just didn't have any control of the car there," McMurray told NBC, explaining that he thought he had a tire cut down at the time.
“I was sitting in the middle and [McMurray], something happened and it went to the right and then chased it and then was in a slide and came back down in front of me, hit the 42 [of Larson] door-to-door, had light contact," Johnson said on NBC. "I thought we were fine but our momentum just carried me into the back of the 1 and eventually turned him sideways and that whole thing happened … We’re all dealing with a matter of inches and once that started, it just collected everybody in it.”
Kevin Harvick, who had been riding deeper in the pack and staying out of trouble in the early segment of the race, ended up with Brian Scott's car up over his.
"Those guys got tangled up up front and we were in the middle of it," Harvick said on NBC. "So, I know I had one car on my roof and everybody else just kept piling in. I don’t know exactly who that was. It’s one of those things that it doesn’t take much for it to all go south here at the superspeedway track. It is what it is.”
The big one in Daytona. #CokeZero400 https://t.co/L9ke8AOcEZ
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Matt Kenseth said he thought everyone had settled in so he decided to start working his way to the front.
"We had a bad pit stop exchange and came out way, way behind everybody," Kenseth said. "... I probably should have just hung in the back, hindsight, but who knows when they’re going to wreck, you never know if they’re going to wreck. Just trying to get back towards the front and there was a wreck somewhere a few rows up in front of me and just nowhere really to go.”
Rookies Chase Elliott and Chris Buescher were also involved.
About 20 cars in all caught a piece of the crash.