Bubba Wallace gave his first reaction after a massive pile up during the NASCAR race in Talladega, Alabama. The incident during Lap 116 during Stage 2 of Sunday’s race involved at least 26 cars. The damage totals are still being assessed under a red flag.
Videos from the crash went viral on social media.
“Bubba Wallace Loses control while leading the pack at Talladega, Crashes almost the entire field!”, the person wrote.
The pile-up happened after Wallace was pushed from behind and sent into the outside wall. This triggered the chain-reaction wreck. “That’s the whole field!”, a reporter could be heard saying during the live broadcast.
A video of the incident posted by NASCAR showed that four cars appeared to have escaped the accident. However, the multi-car wreck left many top drivers eliminated. They include Kyle Larson, Joey Logano, Bubba Wallace, William Byron, Cole Custer, and Ryan Blaney, as per early race reports.
Bubba Wallace speaks after the crash
After the crash, Wallace spoke with Fox and said “Uhh damn. Right? Hate it for our team.” He added ”Don’t want to have any DNF. We have two now. It’s a bummer.”
Wallace further continued “We gotta figure out how to be pushed better. I take responsibility on that.”
He also called the incident ‘unfortunate’ and said that he ‘should have contributed’ more to the race. However, Wallace expressed hope that they would be able to bounce back.
Joey Logano also expressed his frustration after the race. He spoke to Fox following the accident and a video was shared online.
“It’s frustrating,” he said. “Everyone starts pushing…it’s going to happen,” he said, adding that he was ‘caught up in it’ today. Such wrecks are reportedly to be expected at Talladega where cars run inches apart at almost 200 mph. Since there was no clear line through the wreck, trailing cars continued to pile onto each other, prompting NASCAR to immediately throw the red flag and halt the race.
This has reportedly been one of the most destructive crashes this NASCAR season.