Sunday, July 08, 2018 11:38 a.m. CDT
Daytona has a way of leaving some drivers with a bad taste in their mouths.
After Saturday night’s crash-filled Coke Zero Sugar 400, Brad Keselowski was among those angry and frustrated.
Keselowski was involved in a wreck on lap 54 that affected 22 cars in some way or another and knocked Keselowski and six other drivers out of the race.
Afterward, Keselowski said he could have avoided the accident by wrecking Hendrick rookie William Byron, who was leading at the time and blocking Keselowski.
“It was just a bad block,” Keselowski said. “There are times you can make a block, there are times you can’t. When you got a guy with a big enough run and you can’t throw a block. I made the mistake of lifting instead of wrecking him and that’s my fault. I take the blame.”
He pointed to Byron’s inexperience as the cause and also issued a warning going forward.
“You’ve got a list of drivers that are making moves that they’re unqualified to make and it causes big wrecks,” Keselowski said. “That was one of those. And it was my fault because I lifted.
“So we’ll wait until Talladega [the other superspeedway on the schedule] and every one of those rookie drivers or guys that don’t know what the hell they are doing we’ll drive through them and wreck them until they stop blocking us and we don’t have this problem no more.”
Ryan Blaney, Kurt Busch, Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano and Daniel Suarez were also done for the day after the wreck on lap 54.
Byron was knocked out of the race in a separate wreck 11 laps later.
Byron responded to Keselowski’s claims later.
“He got hit from behind. I didn’t get hit from anywhere,” Byron said. “If he would have hit me I would have tried to move or save it, but I never got hit.”
The series returns to Talladega on Oct. 14 for the 1000Bulbs.com 500. There are no more races at Daytona this season.
–Field Level Media
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