During the scoring fight on stage, the push went awry sending newcomer Harrison Burton down the track to William Byron. The push was made by the winner of the Duel №1 Brad Kesialowski.
Then Burton’s Wood Brothers car flew into the air, briefly turning upside down and collecting a few more cars.
Burton, Byron, Hamlin and Ross Chastain withdrew from the race after the incident. Christopher Bell also went behind the wall for repairs. In addition, Kyle and Kurt Bush were injured in the crash.
“You always hear about how quiet it is, and it’s true,” Burton said after the inspection and release at the homestead center.
“I don’t know, obviously it’s just a disappointing weekend. We’ve worked very hard all week before and it’s hard to say what happened. Maybe we were pushed into a bad spot on the bumper.
“(Just) wanting to get there stage scores, trying to be smart about it, and just turned there.”
On the radio, Kesyalovsky seemed confused by the crash. “There I was pretty well attached to him … I’m surprised.”
However, Hamlin blamed Kesyalovsky as the pusher after he was released from the homestead care center.
“6 (Kesyalovsky) pushed 21 (Burton) and you could see that 21 was getting out of control. We thought we needed to back off, but 6 just insisted on pushing him at all costs, and eventually turned around. 21.
“It’s hard when you consider that it’s just for the stage. We were kind of trapped where I was. I noticed something was going to happen, but I was behind my teammate and wanted to try to help.
“Again, push too aggressively right there if they weren’t lined up and under control.”