Three NASCAR Cup champions crash in Talladega pit entry stack-up

Several contenders for the win sustained damage in a pit road miscue during the first stage of the race

On Lap 43 of 60 in the first stage at Talladega, green-flag pit stops were well underway. Exiting Turn 4, a group of Fords planned to pit together — and that's when disaster struck.

That's when three Cup champions and former winners at the famed track suffered significant damage early in Sunday's 500-mile race.

It began when RFK Racing's Brad Keselowski, who has the most wins of any active driver in the Cup Series at this superspeedway, slowed down to enter the pit lane under green. Kyle Busch was unable to slow in time and got into the back of Keselowski, sending both cars spinning across the track. After hitting the door of Alex Bowman’s No. 48 machine, they spun back to the inside. That's where Ryan Blaney got clipped in the right-rear by Keselowski, spinning wildly down the frontstretch.

"I don't know what happened," radioed Busch. "We never dropped below the yellow line there. I don't know if they checked up too much for him or what." Busch's steering wheel was knocked 90 degrees to the right, and the team needed to make repairs to the toe of his No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet.

Keselowski and Blaney react to early exit

While Busch remained on track, both Keselowski and Blaney were forced to take their cars behind the wall. They are officially out of the race.

"Just a stack of guys trying to come to pit road as fast as they could," said Keselowski after exiting the infield care center. "We were kind of the ham in the sandwich. I got squeezed. I don't know, I waved down the backstretch just to let everyone know I was gonna pit. I came off (Turn) 4 and everybody was still tight behind me. I didn't even have a chance to really turn left. Hate that it ruined, not just our day, but several other people's days, but I don't feel like I could have done anything different."

Ryan Blaney crash, Team Penske Ford

Photo by: Logan Riely / Getty Images

Blaney thought he had found a way through the chaos, but the sudden change of direction by Keselowski left him with no way to go and his fourth DNF in the first ten races of the 2025 season.

"I feel like we're all easily pretty decent getting to pit road," said Blaney. "Just kind of the point in the race where everyone is going to save some gas and then pit and everyone usually does a really good job of letting people know. I didn't sense anything was gonna happen. Really, from what I could see, the 6 [Keselowski] was trying to get to pit road with his group and I don't know if the guy behind him [Busch] didn't know, didn't see and just kind of ran Brad over.

"And when they got hooked together, they were going up the track, so I just kind of committed to the bottom and I think they clipped someone on the top and ricocheted the 6 [Keselowski] back down the race track into me. That just stinks. Another DNF is no fun. We've just been riddled with those this year. Hopefully, we can get that sorted out and get a little fortune on our side."

Keselowski finished 36th and Blaney 37th at Talladega, each scoring just one point. Busch's car was able to continue, but only managed to reach as high as 27th in the final results.