Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

First ‘Big One’ of Sunday’s race at Talladega involves 15 cars

geico 500 crash

The first “big one” of Sunday’s Geico 500 at Talladega Superspeedway brought out a red flag after 15 cars were damaged.

Among drivers included on the Lap 47 mishap were Trevor Bayne, Alex Bowman, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Kevin Harvick, Justin Allgaier, Josh Wise, Matt DiBenedetto, David Ragan, Tony Stewart, Kasey Kahne, Greg Biffle, Aric Almirola, Danica Patrick, Landon Cassill and Saturday’s winner in the Xfinity Series race, Joey Logano.

“I don’t really know,” Kahne told FOX on what happened. “I was on the outside so I couldn’t really see what was going on. ... I saw (Bayne) wreck in front of me. I don’t know what happened there, somebody tried ditching him and hit him, spun him or what.”

Added Larson,” I didn’t see a whole lot. I saw (Bayne) get sideways in front of me, I don’t know if somebody got into him or if he just got the air taken off him or what. I thought I was going to miss it but then (Cassill) started coming back up the track and I just clipped him.”

Bayne said he got turned by the air.

“What I felt was when the (Paul Menard) went around us on the top, it’s just going to pull you around almost every time, and with Kurt (Busch) pretty close to our left rear, that’s double trouble,” Bayne said. “When you get the air moving around here at these high speeds, it’s physically as much as hitting each other.”

The race was stopped 11 minutes, 15 seconds before it transitioned into a yellow caution period, allowing teams to work on their cars.

It was a bittersweet ending for Ragan, who made his ninth and final start for Joe Gibbs Racing in relief of the injured Kyle Busch. Ragan will move to Michael Waltrip Racing next week to drive the No. 55 Toyota for the sidelined Brian Vickers, for the remainder of the season.

“That’s what’s unfortunate about racing here at Talladega, sometimes you’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Ragan said. “It’s just one of those deals. We know it coming into here.’'

Follow @JerryBonkowski