The entire field managed to make it through 89 laps of the Coke Zero 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Daytona International Speedway without incident.
They didn’t make it 90 laps, though.
At the end of the frontstretch on Lap 90 of the 161-lap race, Jamie McMurray moved down into teammate Kyle Larson and got a nudge from Jimmie Johnson and from there, it was complete chaos as the field wadded up in Turn 1.
“I was in the middle and something happened to the No. 1 ( McMurray) and he went to the right and then he chased it,” said Johnson. “…And was in a slide and came back down in front of me, hit the No. 42 (Larson) door-to-door – kind of light contact.
“I thought we were fine, but I eventually turned him sideways and the whole thing happened,” said Johnson. “I don’t know what happened to the No. 1 to change lanes as fast as he did from the outside, but we are all dealing with a matter of inches and once that started, it just collected everybody.”
“I think somebody might have gotten into my left rear,” said McMurray. “I don’t know if that cut the tire down or what but after I felt that happen, I just didn’t have any control any more. It seemed like a tire maybe went down and it actually felt like I hit oil.”
A total of 22 cars were involved, including all four of the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets, as were the Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolets of Kevin Harvick and Danica Patrick, Matt Kenseth and many others.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. has now crashed in all three restrictor-plate races this season.
The scariest part of the crash came when Brian Scott landed on top off Harvick’s car.
“I watched the replay and it didn’t look as severe as it felt to me,” said Scott. “When I realized I was on top of a car and opened my eyes to me it was like I was looking straight down and felt like I was in the process of flipping onto the room. Then we were stopped in the grass and I knew the car was killed.”
Scott wasn’t the only one frustrated.
“There were times when it looked like it was getting pretty hairy up there,” said Kenseth, a two-time Daytona 500 winner. “And we would back up a little bit, but it was actually starting to look like it was going to stable out. It was mainly two-wide and some three-wide, but you can’t predict when they’re going to happen.”
