Multiple cars were involved in a Lap 3 crash during Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race on the Chicago Street Course.
Carson Hocevar contacted both the right- and left-side walls exiting Turn 10 while running seventh. With damaged suspension, the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet then spun back across the track and created a block ahead of the majority of the field.
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Austin Dillon was the first bystander to be collected before others like Brad Keselowski, Todd Gilliland, Daniel Suárez, Riley Herbst and reigning Supercars champion Will Brown piled in with nowhere to go on Michigan Avenue.
AJ Allmendinger, Josh Berry, Austin Cindric and Cole Custer also sustained damage in the incident. The race was red-flagged and brought to a halt to allow crews to clear the wrecks.
Hocevar, Dillon, Keselowski, Gilliland and Brown were unable to continue and were ruled out of the race. Finishing 35th, Hocevar was the No. 26 seed in the second round of the In-Season Challenge and did not advance over No. 23 Tyler Reddick, who finished third. Keselowski entered Sunday as the No. 17 seed but finished 37th and will not advance over 20th-place finisher and No. 32 seed Ty Dillon, who along with Reddick advances to the third round Sunday, July 13 at Sonoma Raceway (3:30 p.m. ET, TNT Sports/truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Keselowski, Brown, Dillon and Gilliland were all evaluated and released from the infield care center after mandatory trips. The early exit ended a two-race stretch of top-10 finishes for Keselowski, the 2012 Cup champion.
“I didn’t see it until the last second,” Keselowski said. “I slowed down and I actually felt I was gonna get stopped and then I just kind of got ran over from behind. It’s just a narrow street course and sometimes there’s nowhere to go.”
Dillon qualified 10th in the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet for Sunday’s race but quickly became a victim of circumstances ahead of him as he directly trailed Hocevar when the No. 77 Chevrolet impacted the walls and spun.
“Disappointing day in the No. 3 Breztri Chevrolet at the Chicago Street Race,” said Dillon, whose only other DNF this year came at Circuit of The Americas in March. “Crew chief Richard Boswell and everyone on the RCR team brought a really fast Chevrolet to the streets of Chicago. We qualified 10th and thought we would be a contender today in the race. A car spun in front of us on the first lap and it ended our day before we could even get it started. It’s a shame and I’m just at a loss for words at this point. We’ll just keep bringing cars like this and hope our luck turns around for us at some point.”