LINCOLN, Ala. — What tied for the largest wreck in the modern history of NASCAR broke out with five laps to go in Sunday’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, as 27 cars were involved in The Big One of all big ones with five laps to go. The crash occurred right at the front of the field, and took out virtually all of the lead pack.
Austin Cindric and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. were racing for the lead and the win going down the backstretch as the lead pack made their way past Todd Gilliland, who was being put a lap down after losing the draft due to a pit road speeding penalty on his final green flag stop. Cindric would wind up getting a gap between himself and Brad Keselowski that was quickly closed as Keselowski received a push from Joey Logano, but the push was too much for Cindric to handle.
Cindric spun off the bumper of Keselowski and in front of traffic after bouncing off Stenhouse’s car to his outside, triggering a melee that collected virtually the entire lead pack.
The complete list of cars involved in the crash included Cindric, Tyler Reddick, Alex Bowman, Michael McDowell, Chris Buescher, Chase Elliott, A.J. Allmendinger, Harrison Burton, Joey Logano, John Hunter Nemechek, Chase Briscoe, Bubba Wallace, Noah Gragson, Daniel Suarez, Corey LaJoie, Josh Berry, Todd Gilliland, Anthony Alfredo, Zane Smith, Martin Truex Jr., Shane van Gisbergen, Christopher Bell and Erik Jones. That group included eight of the playoff drivers, including Cindric, who had been battling to potentially advance to the Round of 8 with a victory.
Although there are documented crashes involving more cars prior to the sport’s modern era (1972 onwards), the 28-car pileup is the largest crash statistically recorded by NASCAR. The previous all-time high for cars involved in a crash had been 27.
After making it through the crash, Stenhouse would go on to win the race after beating both Keselowski and William Byron in a three-wide photo finish.
