Another curveball struck those around the current Chase bubble Sunday afternoon at Pocono Raceway as Brad Keselowski, Shane van Gisbergen, Bubba Wallace, Christopher Bell and Joey Logano were all caught up in a multicar wreck down the frontstretch during Stage 2.
Running three-wide off Turn 3, Shane van Gisbergen and Josh Berry made contact before Austin Hill made it three-wide on the bottom with the stack-up ultimately forcing the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford into the wall. A chain reaction ensued with Noah Gragson and Logano spinning. The No. 22 Team Penske Ford just clipped the left rear of Wallace’s No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota, sending Wallace around.
With nowhere to go, Keselowski hit the side of the No. 23, causing race-ending damage to the front end of the No. 6 RFK Racing Ford. Bell also brushed the outside wall in the incident.
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Keselowski and Gragson went behind the wall, while the others involved remained on track. Gragson was credited with a 35th-place result, and Keselowski was scored last in 38th.
Wallace finished 21st on the lead lap. Bell recovered and nearly stole Sunday’s race on fuel strategy, but ran out just before the final lap and crossed the line 26th. Van Gisbergen and Logano both finished outside the top 30, multiple laps down.
Bell (10th), Wallace (11th), van Gisbergen (14th) and Keselowski (15th) all entered Sunday’s race in provisional Chase spots while Logano was 17th, three points behind teammate Austin Cindric for the final spot.
After Sunday, Keselowski dropped outside The Chase to 17th, while Wallace also conceded two spots and is 13th heading to Naval Base Coronado next Sunday (4 p.m. ET, Prime Video, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“I thought we had decent pace and just trying to bide our time,” Keselowski said after exiting the infield care center. “The race was going to crack open in different strategies. These guys run really stupid races where they’re like three wide on Lap 5 in a race where strategy is going to re-shuffle the field three more times. So we were just trying not to get caught up in their junk, and I missed the first wave of the junk, but not the second.”