Mears passed Waltrip on Lap 217 of Saturday night’s Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway in Turn 1. Just as he did, Mears’ spotter, Eddie Masencup, said “Clear, clear” over the radio.
But Mears wasn’t.
He turned into Waltrip’s No. 55 Toyota, which ignited the multicar wreck that required a nearly 13-minute red flag to clear the track of debris.
“I like my spotter; he’s a good guy, but man that was ridiculous,” Mears said after the wreck. “We took a bunch of cars out for no reason. I was just running along, heard “clear, clear” and went up there and there was someone (Waltrip) still there.
“I’m pretty upset about it. There were a lot of people that got involved in that, which shouldn’t have been involved because it shouldn’t have happened.”
“It’s disappointing because we’re going to take a hit in the Chase points, but that’s the risk you run here at Bristol,” Kahne said. “I love racing here at Bristol - it’s a great place with great fans. It was just a bad deal tonight.”
Kahne, Sorenson, Mears, Gordon and Hornish were all immediately knocked out of the race. Bowyer continued, but suffered serious damage to the nose of his No. 07 Chevrolet.
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