Multicar crash in Stage 2 thins field of Michigan contenders

A host of contenders found midrace trouble in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race when a multicar crash erupted off Turn 4 at Michigan International Speedway.

Kyle Larson’s No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet broke loose in the 116th of a scheduled 200 laps in Sunday’s FireKeepers Casino 400. His slide collected cars driven by Bubba Wallace, Chris Buescher, Joey Logano, Christopher Bell, Todd Gilliland and Chase Briscoe as the field scattered.

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Logano, Larson, Bell and Gilliland were sidelined by the crash and finished 33rd through last in the 36-car field in that order. The wreck also forced Stage 2 to finish under the yellow flag, and Kyle Busch was the stage winner.

Larson unofficially fell out of the Cup Series points lead, relinquishing the top spot to eventual winner Tyler Reddick.

“Yeah, I just messed up,” Larson said after a check at the infield care center. “You try to get all you can on restarts. I was just trying to funnel myself up the race track. I didn‘t want to get stuck on the bottom three-wide. Just got myself in an awkward aero spot and lost it. It‘s unfortunate. I made a mistake and cost ourselves a lot of points today.”

The melee shook up the provisional Cup Series Playoffs picture, but Buescher had the best rebound among those on the postseason bubble. He came back to finish sixth and holds a 16-point edge over the elimination line. Ross Chastain, who lost a lap and finished 25th after an overtime spin, is just plus-one over Wallace, who finished 26th and ranks as the first driver out.

“Things happen in front but to me, I just feel like if you see an accident, start checking up,” said Buescher, who pitted when a yellow flag forced overtime, then rallied back for a top-10 result. “It seems like not a lot of people do that right now. It is just chaos when these yellows come out. That happened a little quicker than I really realized but it is still frustrating to be involved in that and take away the pace we had in this Mustang. It was just so good. I had such a fun time the first half of this race between yesterday and today and this is a heck of a recovery ultimately on the day.”

After the Michigan race, just two regular-season events remain — Saturday night at Daytona and the following week at Darlington — before the 16-driver playoff grid is set.

Other drivers collected in the Turn 4 tangle said that few evasive options existed.

“Yeah, I saw him spin,” Bell said, “and we were so bunched up that once one car gets sideways, there is not much that you can do.”

Logano was further back in the pack after a right-rear tire issue on Lap 108 dropped him from 14th place.

“We had that right-rear tire go flat right before that, which put us back there down a lap and then I think the 5 just spun out in front of me and kind of caused a big wad and a Daytona-type crash,” Logano said. “There was nowhere to really go. I couldn‘t steer it left, so I just committed to maybe if I could slow it down enough, I could center-punch it, and it wouldn‘t be that bad. That was my only option there. Unfortunately, we got knocked out a little early.”