The Big One is getting contagious. Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway have long been synonymous with “The Big One”, multi-car wrecks that can take out as much as half the field at any given time.
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Sunday, The Big One moved about 750 miles west from Talladega to Texas Motor Speedway, as a high-speed multi-car wreck on Lap 172 took out six key players in the Würth 400.
While last week’s goat, Joey Logano, redeemed himself by winning Sunday’s race, several drivers were not as fortunate, including Bubba Wallace, Noah Gragson, Alex Bowman, AJ Allmendinger and Chad Finchum, among others.
To his credit, Wallace took the blame for starting the wreck. He grazed the Turn 2 wall on a restart, bounced off and then appeared to have been pushed from behind by Logano, starting the whole chain of events.
“My day started out probably good,” Wallace told Frontstretch.com. “(There were) positives that we went through this weekend, so that’s what we’re going to hold our heads to. I hate that I got into the fence. I was trying to give the 22 room and then just got the wall and started chaos.
“I hate it for my team, hated it for everybody involved. But man, we were making progress from the start of the weekend and it was going to shape up to be a good day but nothing’s ever for certain so it is what it is. It’s chaos when you come here to Texas. I just had a lapse. It doesn’t take much to just get you off your rhythm and I got bit by my own mistake.
“There’s a fine line and you don’t know when you cross it until it’s too late and so I just got a little bit too high and thought I was okay. I was just trying to manage and it is what it is. But yeah, you find yourself in bad spots quick and you don’t even know you’re there.”
Gragson, Bowman, Allmendinger and Finchum all retired after the incident, while Wallace was able to soldier on for seven additional laps before he called it a day as well.
What did the others say about getting caught in the Big One?
As for some of the others that were involved, here are some of their comments.
ALEX BOWMAN: “Guys were crashing. I tried to get high and the 16 came across and we all piled in there. I hate that we had a really fast Ally Chevy. Obviously, I think we passed more cars than anybody’s ever passed at Texas and just shouldn’t have been back there to begin with. So I’m really bummed but we go on to the next one. To be honest with you, that’s normally how Texas is. And for me, my car was amazing. We drove up through the field three times today, and the fourth time was just pushing our luck.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER: “I saw Bubba kind of get pressed up against the wall and then whoever was behind him looked like it just never checked up and hooked him. I thought I was going to have a chance to miss it and then somebody got me in the right rear and that turned me up in the wall and that was it. It’s just disappointing.”
NOAH GRAGSON: “I saw Bubba got spun up the track and he was going upward so I shot low, thought I could clear him and I think he clipped me in the right rear and we got spun and wrecked. It sucks. We had a really fast Roush Ford Mustang. It’s kind of been the story of the season, we got ‘em on speed, just getting into silly things like that.”
