Chase Elliott is done for the night in the NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway as he was a late addition to the carnage in a 12-car melee in Turn 3 on Lap 198 of the 400-lap event.
Prior to the incident, Kyle Busch and Ross Chastain made contact on the exit of Turn 2, which sent Chastain into Brad Keselowski, which caused damage to Keselowski’s No. 6 car. As the pack of cars reached Turn 3, Chase Briscoe went for a wild ride as he attempted to squeeze past Kyle Larson in the low lane.
Briscoe ran out of room and went spinning back across the track in front of oncoming traffic, which included Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Justin Haley, Chastain, Keselowski, Ty Dillon, Cole Custer, and Erik Jones.
As the crash was coming to an end, Chase Elliott was attempting to squeeze through the chaos, but as he tried to skirt by, he received a hit in the right-rear quarterpanel of his No. 9 Chevrolet from Kyle Busch, which sent him hard-right into the outside wall.
A huge stack up involves a bunch of contenders! pic.twitter.com/lpdyz5K7hV
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) August 17, 2025
As Elliott went into the outside wall, he collided slightly with William Byron, his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, who is trying to wrap up the regular season championship.
“I have no idea what happened, still,” Elliott said after being checked and released from the infield care center. “You know, obviously, I saw them crashing, and we were all stacking up trying to get stopped. And after the wreck was over, I thought we were done wrecking, I tried to squeeze by.
“And I guess Kyle [Busch] didn’t know I was to the left. We were — whoever was next to me and myself were trying to kind of get by the accident. So, we were coming through there at a decent rate and unfortunately, Kyle just didn’t know we were on the bottom. So, I hate that. Had a good start to the night, and it just slowly unraveled until it finally fell apart.”
Elliott will be credited with a 38th-place finish. Justin Haley also took his No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet behind the wall following the crash. Everyone else involved was able to soldier on, incredibly.
