Chris Buescher able to walk away after his Ford ends up on its roof.
Daniel Suarez seemed to be the car to beat in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup series Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. He won Stage 2, and led 36 laps, but was forced to overcome several slow pit stops fighting his way forward on a few occasions to get back into contention.
But on lap 346 his night, and that of Chris Buescher, ended in spectacular fashion. Exiting turn 4, the Chevy of Suarez got loose and slid up in front of the Ford of Chase Briscoe. Suarez was sent spinning down the front stretch being hit first by the Ford of Todd Gilliland. Just behind Buescher slid sideways trying to avoid Suarez and the two made contact and the Ford of Buescher was send sideways across the front stretch turf.
The right front suspension on Buescher’s car broke off and the tethers designed to keep the wheel from flying off instead held the wheel and sent it under the car sending it barrel rolling several times before coming to a stop on its roof.
NASCAR immediately red flagged the race and the safety crew was on scene in under 25 seconds by which time Buescher had disconnected the window net indicating he was okay.
“It’s not ideal by any means. I’m gonna be a bit sore tomorrow” he said. “I haven’t been upside-down in a really long time. The team did a really nice job. We had great speed and had a chance at this thing, it just didn’t work out.”
After the safety crew slowly righted the car, Buescher climbed from what was left of his machine.
“I do appreciate them for helping me and setting it back over again, so thank you to everybody working for not slamming it back,” he said. “It was nice to be able to get out. The blood is rushing to your head a little bit. I guess I could have pulled the belts and fallen right to the ground, but figured I’d just wait on them.”
Suarez’s night ended as well.
“I just got tight. With these cars, clean air is very important,” Suarez said. “They were side-by-side in front of me. I was fine in front and eventually I got in the middle of the wake and I got super tight. I put myself in a bad situation there. It was just a tough situation.
“I’m just glad Chris (Buescher) is fine. My team has been building rockets. We had the best car out there. It was a struggle for us on pit road. Not my guys, but the situation where we were in with the 22 (Joey Logano) and the 11 (Denny Hamlin). We have to learn from it and come back stronger.”
Keyword: Video: Dramatic Crash Forces Red flag in NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600