Bubba Wallace and Alex Bowman uninjured after fiery crash during Charlotte NASCAR Cup race

With three laps remaining in the first stage of the Charlotte Cup race, Alex Bowman dove on the inside of Bubba Wallace in the battle for fifth.

Halfway through the turn, Bowman’s number 48 started to slide sideways and he overcorrected to try to save it. Bowman drove up the track, directly into the right rear of Wallace’s car, into a huge hit. Both cars then hit the outside wall, before spinning towards the inside of the track and also hitting the inside barrier.

William Byron was unable to avoid the wreck and hit his teammate in the No. 48, and all three cars fell out of the race due to the damage caused by the crash. Tyler Reddick was right there but narrowly turned away from the scrum as his No. 45 slid sideways.

There was a moment of concern when Wallace didn’t say anything on the radio, and after some back and forth with the medical team, a stretcher was carried to number 23. Luckily he didn’t need it, he carefully got out of the car and walked slowly to the ambulance while saying the word ‘ow’.

All drivers were checked and released from the field care center shortly afterwards.

“Yeah, it just came loose,” Bowman said. “Honestly, I was really tight and I don’t know, as soon as I got to the exit of the corner, it broke and kind of didn’t have a chance. Unfortunately, I grabbed too much steering wheel and corrected those two guys too much. I hate it for our Ally 48 team. Obviously we had a pretty fast car. I also hate it for cars 23 (Wallace) and 24 (Byron), like it was okay to get lost and crashing, but also ruining their days really sucks.

“It’s my fault. I just didn’t hold on to it well enough and I just got caught off guard. I don’t know why I got so lost, I hadn’t been slack at all, but that’s part of driving race cars and unfortunately I didn’t do a good enough job.”

Wallace spoke shortly afterward, and he was in good spirits despite the heavy crash. “No warning,” Wallace said. “I saw him at the last second. The 48 (Bowman) came and cut us off. No hard feelings, it’s just racing. It’s loose out there… Him and I don’t want to give up any spots (and) he wants to pass me. But for the sake of pit road, for our day to go smoothly, we want to stay in front of him. But he just got loose and, to be honest, the first hit wiped our brakes. And so on to the second shot, it felt good, but we’re fine. We still have nine fingers and nine toes, so we’re good.

Byron lamented that he “got up right away, but couldn’t get down low enough because (Bowman) kind of pushed the wall back.”

This is Wallace’s first DNF in the Chase, and he will finish 37th with Bowman 38th and Byron 39th. It was a particularly brutal end for Wallace, who had led a few laps earlier and looked like a contender before fading slightly late in the race. You can read more about Wallace in his latest media scrum, featuring Motorsport.com among other outlets: