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Christopher Bell triggers big wreck at Atlanta, major NASCAR bracket challenge implications

Originally posted on 5 GOATs | By Jonathan Howard | Last updated Jun 28, 2025 11:14 PM ET

The first big one of the night! Coming to the end of Stage 1, Christopher Bell triggered a massive wreck that has major implications. Tonight’s Quaker State 400 is the first race of the NASCAR In-Season Challenge, and this wreck is likely busting a ton of brackets tonight.

Christopher Bell won this race back in February. He likely won’t win tonight after spinning out in front of traffic and causing a multicar crash coming to the end of Stage 1.

Austin Dillon, Ryan Blaney, Bubba Wallace, and AJ Allmendinger were all involved as well. Kyle Busch appeared to be involved in the wreck along with Kyle Larson. A lot of cars collected in this incident.

For those participating in the bracket challenge, this has big implications. Carson Hocevar will now advance over Ryan Blaney after this incident. The 12 car is out of the race, and Hocevar will place above him in this race no matter what happens from here.

The No. 20 spins in front of the field and collects @Blaney and @austindillon3!

Huge In-Season Challenge implications here! pic.twitter.com/OIU77nuqzk
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 29, 2025

These are the kinds of wrecks that make the NASCAR In-Season Challenge so difficult. Things are very hard to predict in this sport. One wreck can ruin the day of 10 other teams. There isn’t a clean bracket left in the country after tonight, I guarantee you that.

While this wreck from Christopher Bell was impactful, the field wrecked again soon after. The ‘big one’ came to Atlanta.

Field wrecks on restart after Christopher Bell incident

After the Christopher Bell wreck, the field was reracked and sent back out for another restart. It gave some drivers opportunity after the stage break to make moves. Only, the field never got to do that as a massive 23-car wreck unfolded on the restart.

Denny Hamlin was pushing, the cars behind him were pushing, and then the wreck happened. 23 cars were running into each other at the blink of an eye. Just total carnage on the race track. There are now 10 cars OUT of the race completely. Talk about a bracket buster, every bracket is one fire right now.

Christopher Bell’s wreck was bad. But the one right after was horrific. Joey Logano couldn’t believe what happened. It was one of the biggest wrecks you will see in the Cup Series.

This article first appeared on 5 GOATs and was syndicated with permission.

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