Denny Hamlin & Bubba Wallace Fall Prey to the Talladega Jinx as Jimmie Johnson’s Star Wipes Out Toyota Allies

Denny Hamlin and Bubba Wallace’s run at Talladega ended on a disastrous note after a good Toyota plan quickly turned sour. With 33 laps to go, the Toyota’s started to single file in trying to make haste and compete for the late run. However, coming to Turn 3, Bubba Wallace’s No. 23 was sandwiched between Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek, which resulted in a domino effect of cars wrecking each other.

Wallace had enough of the blocks and bumping, and decided to wreck Jones’ 43 car, crashing him into the wall. Nemechek, in his desperate bid to avoid being crashed, turned inside of the racetrack where he made contact with Hamlin’s No. 11 car. Out of the seven Toyota Camry, four of them crashed out of the event. Tyler Reddick, Ty Gibbs, and Martin Truex Jr are still in contention but seriously outnumbered against Fords and Chevys.

Bubba Wallace is frustrated with the wreck at Talladega

In all fairness, this race really could have launched Wallace to a good finish, considering the momentum he was carrying. However, despite the efforts of the Toyota drivers teaming up to form a single file, they just couldn’t keep their noses clean. It was an unwarranted push by all three drivers involved in the crash, given that there was plenty of racing left.

Sharing his thoughts after the crash, the 23XI star said, “We were all pushing really hard to keep our line going. We had a plan and just didn’t execute it as well as we should. You look forward to running these places, and you just get trapped in somebody else’s mess. But I hate it, doesn’t make us look good at all. We’ll just reset and go to Dover. We got a long way to go. We’re fine, just frustrating.”

Denny Hamlin was rather unfortunate to find himself on the receiving end of this mess. However, he felt like one of the three drivers made a huge mistake in trying to push into the turns. “We were trying to do our best to run our own strategy there, and obviously we all wrecked each other. Somebody obviously made a mistake. Yeah, you can’t push in the corner, for sure. I don’t know who it started with or whatever, but you can’t push into the corner.”

Later, Erik Jones, who was also involved in the melee, questioned Wallace’s moves on the turn 3 which sparked the big crash.

Toyota drivers were unable to work out their strategy

In a Superspeedway race, it is common to see the same manufacturer driver grouping up and trying to work their way around the field. The Toyota contingent tried to work out something similar during the GEICO 500 race in Talladega, but it ended on an unpleasent note. In the aftermath of the incident, Jones, who took a nasty hit against the wall, provided an update on his well-being while also sharing his thoughts on the crash.

“Yeah, I’m a little sore, but it’ll be alright. I don’t know how the 23 was pushing us there, obviously. We were pushing and shoving, trying to make our strategy. You know I got pretty sideways getting into 3 and tried to gather it up into the wall. It’s unfortunate; I hate it for my team and my guys who wanted to work out and have a good run,” Jones said via FOX.

Was it Erik Jones, or was it Bubba Wallace who engineered this crash? What is your take on this incident?