Here is the crash that just eliminated Byron, Bell, and Bubba. The accident was triggered by contact from Zane Smith on Bubba Wallace: pic.twitter.com/Ykh3DzhLO6
— Toby Christie (@Toby_Christie) April 28, 2024
Well, that will do it for Bubba Wallace, William Byron, and Christopher Bell in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Wurth 400 at Dover Motor Speedway.
In Turn 2 on Lap 329, Rookie of the Year contender Zane Smith, who was battling Wallace, washed high and made contact with the No. 23 car, which sent Wallace spinning back across the track off of the turn.
Here is a replay from inside the cars of Wallace and Smith, which shows what caused the crash:
Another look at the accident on Lap 329. https://t.co/vFJLASgsIu pic.twitter.com/x1Y2LWTr47
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) April 28, 2024
As Wallace’s car skidded back down to the inside of the track, Christopher Bell received a tap from another car from behind, which sent him crashing, and William Byron had nowhere to go and t-boned the side of Wallace’s car.
Here are additional replays of the crash:
Christopher Bell, Bubba Wallace, William Byron and Zane Smith involved in this one. Here’s what happened: https://t.co/Ofa9Gf0yOi pic.twitter.com/hGc9F2l6cw
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) April 28, 2024
The incident led to massive damage for all three drivers, and it spelled the end of the race for them all.
Byron, a three-time winner this season, had yet to record a DNF prior to the incident late in Sunday’s race at Dover.
This will mark the third DNF for a crash for Bell this season, and it’ll be the second-consecutive week that the driver has failed to finish due to a crash. Wallace was also involved in a crash at Talladega last weekend.
“Just a bummer. I hate it for our Xfinity U.S. Air Force Toyota. Not the result we needed, back-to-back DNFs,” Wallace said. “Man, [Crew Chief] Bootie [Barker] said it perfect Monday when I was pissed off and frustrated after Talladega. He said, ‘Hey, we’re going to have to grind our ass off for Dover. From practice, to the qualifying, to the race, it’s not going to be pretty,’ I don’t think he meant that part, you know, the wrecking out wasn’t going to be pretty. We had to grind. Proud of the effort we put in every week. Just unfortunate, no results to show for it. We’ll just go on to Kansas, where hopefully we’re not around any squirrels, and go kick their ass.”
