It always seems to happen this way. With laps wearing down, drivers were pushing one another to the front, running three-wide in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Geico 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. And then chaos ignited.
Kurt Busch was pushing Jimmie Johnson when Johnson's car hooked to the right, turning sideways in front of Paul Menard and stacking up several of the top contenders with 28 laps to go. Cars turned sideways, blocking the track as they slid, sitting ducks as more and more cars piled into the wreckage.
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Johnson was racing for fourth at the time.
“I didn’t feel like I hit him all that much and the next thing I know he was sideways," Busch said. "It reminded me of the qualifying races, the 150’s down in Daytona where he got sideways getting into Turn 1.”
Johnson, however, felt he was being pushed a little aggressively.
“The easier they are to drive compared to Daytona the more aggressive we are going to be," he said. "[Busch] was bump-drafting me and caused that wreck and just kept hitting me and finally ended up taking me out in the process. That was aggressive there.”
Flames shot from the bottom of Ryan Newman's car. Jamie McMurray and others came to rest on the infield grass. In all, 17 cars were caught up in the accident.
Kyle Larson, Martin Truex Jr., AJ Allmendinger, Austin Dillon, Michael McDowell, Greg Biffle, Ryan Blaney, Regan Smith, Danica Patrick, Denny Hamlin, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., David Gilliland and Brian Scott were among those involved.
Race leaders including Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano were ahead of the crash. Ty Dillon, subbing for Tony Stewart, was among drivers to pick his way through the melee.