On Lap 4, the red flag came out. Brad Keselowski and others were involved in a major pileup after Carson Hocevar spun out. With how narrow this track is and how quickly cars pop around corners, a lot of NASCAR drivers were involved in this one.
For Brad Keselowski, it is another disappointing result. This will be his sixth DNF of the season. With a few good runs in the last two months, it felt like this team was turning a corner. Now, they face another setback.
Keselowski left the care center after the wreck. He almost saved his car…then a few others came in and wrecked into him from behind. A tough break.
“Yeah, just wrong spot, wrong time. The 77 wrecked, blocked the track,” Keselowski said, via Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports. “I was going to get stopped to not hit him, or if I was going to hit him, it was going to be very light, and then like three cars came in from behind and blasted us. So, think it broke the left front suspension off the car. Shame, never got a chance to show what we had. Thought we were pretty good, but just how it goes.”
One of the main issues with the wreck was where it happened. Turn 10 into Turn 11 is tricky. More or less a blind spot. However, Brad Keselowski didn’t have that issue.
“Yeah. I mean, actually, my spotter did tell me. He did a good job, he called out the wreck, but there was just nowhere to go.”
Nowhere to go. That’s the story of today’s early, multicar wreck.
There were many drivers involved in the Lap 4 incident after Carson Hocevar wrecked. You had Brad Keselowski, Daniel Suárez, Austin Dillon, Todd Gilliland, Will Brown, and more. A lot of damaged race cars and a few drivers who were unable to continue racing.
You talk about a traffic jam in the city…Hocevar took that to a new level. The 2023 Chicago Street Race had a similar moment with a pileup that blocked the racing surface. That’s what happens in street racing. One incident can turn into a massive wreck.
Brad Keselowski has to win a race. He doesn’t have much longer to do it if he plans to make the playoffs. Today’s race in Chicago wasn’t going to be a winning race for Keselowski, but a good performance could go a long way to build confidence for the races he can win. Onto Sonoma for the 6 team.
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