A nudge from Kyle Busch into Chase Briscoe triggered a multicar crash shortly after a Stage 2 restart during Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway.
As cars battled three-wide down the backstretch at Lap 198, Busch contacted Briscoe’s right-rear entering Turn 3 at the 0.75-mile short track, sending Briscoe spinning across the track and into traffic. The wreck involved 11 different cars, including Denny Hamlin, who had lost track position after consecutive slow pit stops, in addition to Justin Haley, Brad Keselowski and others.
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Trying to escape the melee, Chase Elliott, who entered Saturday’s penultimate regular-season race second in points, was hit in the right-rear corner by Busch just as Elliott cleared the bulk of the carnage. Elliott contacted the outside wall nose-first, ending the 2020 champion’s race early for his first DNF of the season.
Entering the evening, Elliott had completed all but one lap in 2025 and had scored inside the top 20 in each race up until Watkins Glen on Aug. 10. The Dawsonville, Georgia native was scored in last and earned just one point.
Elliott, along with Haley, were checked and released from the care center.
“We’d all stacked up in the wreck there, and I guess he, I’m sure [Busch] just didn’t know I was coming by on the bottom,” Elliott said after being released from the infield care center. “Really awkward because we were kind of done wrecking, I hate that. Had the wreck missed, I thought, and was just trying to kind of get by the last of it there at the end, and Kyle must have maybe got some damage and was just kind of pointed back toward the bottom, and there was a couple of us coming by down there.”
Elliott qualified fifth for Saturday’s 400 lapper in the “River City” and finished 13th in Stage 1 before an interference penalty on pit road with Briscoe sent him to tail end of the longest line.
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“It’s a really tough position, especially when you’re directly behind a car that’s pitted right behind your stall, because the front-tire carriers are carrying two tires, and you get in a position where it’s like if I get too far over to the right, I’m going to be stopped and now he’s not going to be able to get out of his box,” Elliott explained regarding the penalty. “Obviously, I’m not trying to hit his guys. I would never intentionally do that or try and make them get further left. That’s not my intent at all. I just don’t want to get in a position where I’m angled so far in, that now I’ve blocked him in and we have a bad angle for our stop. So all I was trying to do is just take as much room as I could to get back straight and not cause another issue at the end of the pit stop.”
Points leader William Byron received damage, contacting Elliott’s car during the wreck, but continued on. Byron finished 12th, clinching his first career Regular Season Championship.
Elliott leaves Richmond sitting second in points, five markers ahead of Denny Hamlin for third with valuable playoff points still on the line next Saturday at Daytona (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC, Peacock, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).