Just five laps into the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Atlanta, Corey Day triggered a massive wreck, leaving multiple cars damaged. The #17 driver tried to fit his nose into an opening, move up, and ended up triggering the wreck, all while battling for 10th.

The trigger not only took Day out of the race but also jeopardized Ryan Sieg, Kyle Sieg, Harrison Burton, and Blaine Perkins’ day. As a result of the wreck, multiple drivers shared their frustrations on Day, including Sieg, who was also contesting for the place, hit out at Rick Hendrick’s prodigy.

“Every f***ing week he’s an idiot. I don’t know why he’s in that car,” Sieg said. “He definitely needs to learn like, I mean a lot of them do. Just you gotta finish the race before you don’t, I mean you must finish before you can. I mean have a chance to win it. So they gotta learn that and unfortunately, we’re part of a frustrating situation.”

Austin Hill, the winner of the United Rentals 300 at the Daytona International Speedway last week, also shared his thoughts. He told his crew chief on the radio, “I saw that coming from a mile away. The 17 doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

Corey Day of Hendrick Motorsports started the Bennett Transportation and Logistics 250 race from 9th, three places ahead of RSS Racing’s Ryan Sieg. Haas Factory Team’s Sam Mayer claimed the pole, ahead of Carson Kvapil of JR Motorsports and Taylor Gray of Joe Gibbs Racing.

As of Lap 38 of 163, Jesse Love of Richard Childress Racing was leading the race, ahead of Parker Retzlaff of Viking Motorsports and Taylor Gray of Joe Gibbs Racing. Day, however, returned to the track after nursing initial damage, and was running in 13th place, unlike the Daytona race.

Corey Day also caused trouble at Daytona

Unlike Atlanta, Corey Day failed to complete his race at Daytona after he caused a wreck with William Sawalich, Taylor Gray, Harrison Burton and Jeb Burton. Notably, none of the drivers mentioned here made it to the end of the race.

In Lap 99 of the race, the Hendrick Motorsports driver bumper drafted Sawalich, and turned him, causing a massive wreck, which collected numerous other drivers, and brought in a caution.

Prior to this, with just three laps to go, Day, once again, almost wrecked himself, before saving his car from going against the wall. In a nutshell, Corey Day’s outing hasn’t been going well coming into 2026, and his Atlanta wreck is a real testament to that.