After finishing last year’s Ambetter Health 400 race in 33rd position, Brad Keselowski experienced another disappointing finish this season, sliding down to 39th. This year, however, his misfortune was compounded by an entanglement with Chase Elliott. The duo were involved in a mid-race crash during the NASCAR Atlanta event toward the end of Stage 2.
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Elliott, having bounced off the wall due to what initially looked like a tire blowout, could not regain control of his car. He ultimately collided with the wall and swept up the #6 car driven by Keselowski, along with Corey LaJoie.
Reflecting on the incident, Keselowski remarked, “There’s, like, a million of those decisions during one of these races, and you just try to get a feel for it and I guessed wrong. It’s just intense racing. It’s great racing. It’s fun to be a part of. Just hate we didn’t come out on top,” after being assessed and released from the infield care center.
Rather than casting blame on Elliott, Keselowski provided his own account of the events: “I got up to the top 10 and the restart there, it looked like someone got into (Chase Elliott) and put him in the fence. I slowed for that, lost a bunch of spots, and then a little later down, it appears he broke a toe link. I saw it initially, I started to go, and it popped right in front of me. I had nowhere to go and broke the radiator.”
Instances which led to Keselowski’s crash
With a mere 10 laps remaining in Stage 2, Elliott was running in P11 navigating the high lane through Turns 3 and 4 amidst a tight three-wide race, with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Chase Briscoe jockeying for position to his left.
As Briscoe’s car drifted up the track, it nudged Stenhouse’s #47 Chevrolet, catapulting Elliott into the SAFER barrier. The collision seemingly snapped Elliott’s right-rear toe link, compromising his control over the vehicle.
At the end of the sequence, as they crossed the start/finish line, Elliott’s car veered sideways, making contact with LaJoie’s #1 and Keselowski’s #6 Fords.
Although both Elliott and LaJoie managed to coax their battered vehicles to pit road, Keselowski was not as fortunate and required his car to be towed to the garage area, where it was repaired under the new Damaged Vehicle Policy regulations for the 2025 season.
The race concluded with Elliott in P20, while LaJoie and Keselowski, whose crews assessed the damages as too extensive for repair, were forced to retire, finishing P38 and P39 respectively. All in all, it seems the RFK Racing driver and co-owner looks at the incident as a by-product of hard racing and nothing egregious on Elliot’s part.
