Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney are in the garage early on in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series event at Talladega Superspeedway, after an accident while coming to pit road under green in the first stage.
The incident happened at Lap 44, when the second group of leaders was coming to pit road for a green-flag pit stop. Things went awry in the lead draft.
Brad Keselowski got the worst of it. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/9RSKqLLIZT
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) April 27, 2025
Keselowski, driving the No. 6 BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse, was attempting to get down to pit road, when the driver behind him, Kyle Busch, didn’t check up in time and made contact with the RFK Racing driver.
Both drivers then spun up back onto the racing surface, entering the tri-oval and making minor contact with Alex Bowman, before ricocheting down the racetrack and clobbering the right-rear tire of Ryan Blaney’s No. 12, breaking the toe link.
The Rochester Hills, Michigan-native had his No. 6 Ford Mustang Dark Horse towed back to the hit pit stall, where the crew started to evaluate the damage, before bringing it back to the garage.
As a result of this incident, Keselowski will now finish the opening 10 events of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series campaign without a single top-10 finish, his longest streak to start a season since 2010.
“Just a stack of guys trying to come to pit road as fast as they could, we were kind of the ham in the sandwich, and got squeezed,” said Keselowski. “I waved down the backstretch to let everybody know I was going to pit, and I came off of Turn 4, and everybody was so tight behind me that I didn’t have a chance to turn left.”
“I hate that it ruined not just our days, but other people’s days, but I don’t feel like I could do anything different.”
Blaney, the 2023 champion of the NASCAR Cup Series and a former winner at Talladega Superspeedway, had to bring his Advance Auto Parts Ford Mustang Dark Horse back to the garage for repairs, as well.
“I feel like we’re all usually pretty decent getting to pit road, just kind of at the point in the race where everybody is going to save gas, and then pit, and everybody usually does a really good job of letting people know, so I didn’t sense anything was going to happen,” said Blaney.
“From really what I could see, the No. 6 was trying to get to pit road with his group, and I don’t know if the guy behind didn’t know, or couldn’t see, and just kind of ran Brad [Keselowski] over. When they got hooked together, they were going up the track, so I went to the bottom, and I think they clipped someone and ricocheted the No. 6 back down the racetrack into me.”
It’s the fourth DNF of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series campaign for Blaney. The caution would set up a sprint to the finish of the race’s first stage, restarting inside the final 10 laps.
