Cars crash on the back straight after Elliot Sadler lost control of his car during the Best Buy 400 at Dover International Speedway. (Nick Laham/Getty Images Photo)
Dover International Speedway has always been a place where calamity can take place at any time, and that’s exactly what happened in the opening laps of Sunday’s Best Buy 400 benefiting Student Clubs for Autism Speaks, where fully half of the top 12 drivers in points were caught in a massive accident.
The incident occurred in Turn 2, on Lap 18. Elliott Sadler was in the middle of the corner when his left-rear quarter panel made contact with the right-front fender of David Gilliland, who was in the bottom groove of the track. The contact sent Sadler hard into the outside wall, where his car spun around, bounced off the wall and was t-boned in the passenger-side door by Tony Stewart.
That spun Sadler’s car around the other way and he was t-boned again, this time on the driver’s side, by first Kasey Kahne and then Denny Hamlin. Kahne only grazed Sadler’s car, but Hamlin hit it hard. There were no injuries.
The wreck also took out Dale Earnhardt Jr., Scott Riggs, Bobby Labonte, Denny Hamlin, Casey Mears, Paul Menard and Bill Elliott. The incident brought out a red flag.
“It’s just everyone going for the same spot,” said Hamlin. “It’s so tight off Turn 2. I feel bad for Elliott. I came piling in there way late. I had the 43 (Labonte) right on my bumper and was trying not to get hit by him. When I heard ‘wreck off Turn 2,’ I immediately was on the brakes. It’s just these cars don’t stop as well as they have in the past. Luckily I wasn’t the last one in. It looked like guys behind me piled into it.”
Stewart blamed himself for collecting Sadler, who took Stewart in the opening laps at Darlington three weeks earlier. “I take 100 percent responsibility,” said Stewart. “It’s my fault for even being anywhere close to Elliott. If I’m within half a lap of him, I expect that to happen. It was my fault. I’m the one that hit him. When I hit him, it caused the all the guys behind us to wreck. So it’s my fault.”
Sadler got the worst of it, but he escaped uninjured though annoyed. “A lot of good cars taken out early in the race,” Sadler lamented. “Not a good day.”
Tom Jensen is the Senior NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,” and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the President of the National Motorsports Press Association. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to
