Bubba Wallace spotter Freddie Kraft places blame on Kyle Larson for big wreck at Daytona
It didn’t take long for the “big one” to strike in Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway. At first glance, it looked like the 12-car wreck was caused by Bubba Wallace, who crowded Joey Logano down the frontstretch on Lap 27, collecting Kyle Busch and others.
Freddie Kraft, Wallace’s spotter, saw it differently. From what he observed, Kyle Larson got in the back of Wallace, who came down into the middle lane where Logano was.
“5 [Larson] just tried to f*cking force middle there,” Kraft said, via Steven Taranto of CBS Sports.
Of course, there are two sides to every story. Larson gave his take of what happened from his view inside the car.
“I don’t know why Bubba was crowding him so much,” Larson said, via Jeff Gluck of The Athletic.
Bubba Wallace reacts to big wreck at Daytona
The wreck brought out the red flag and ended several drivers’ night, as well as their chances of making the playoffs. Wallace got some of the worst of it but fortunately for him, his Brickyard 400 victory last month locked him into the postseason. He was the first one to make it back from the infield care center, where he spoke with Parker Kligerman of NBC Sports.
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“Oh, I need to see a replay, I know everything was happening pretty quickly there,” Wallace said. “… The hit from the 5 [Larson] shoved me down there. And it was like I got shoved up by the 22 [Logano] when the 12 [Ryan Blaney] moved up. He was trying to just move up and take a lane, but oh well. Man, I hate it. 22nd to the lead in a short amount of time.”
Wallace later took blame for the incident: “I hate that. I’ll take the blame for it, unfortunately. Just a crap deal. Everything was going too good, too early to be all true. So, something was bound to happen. I hate that we were involved in it, but hopefully, we can get the 45 [Tyler Reddick] in still. So, all in all, we’re locked in. Let’s get focused for Darlington, and I’m OK.”