NASCAR Cup Series

Daytona crash includes Johnson, Gordon

Published Feb. 20, 2011 12:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

A 17-car wreck occurred on Lap 29 between Turns 3 and 4 when Michael Waltrip slammed the rear of the No. 00 Toyota driven by teammate David Reutimann.

Drivers whose cars were collected included Mark Martin, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth, Andy Lally, Joe Nemechek, Brian Keselowski, Marcos Ambrose, Brian Vickers, AJ Allmendinger and Greg Biffle.

"I was pushing David," Waltrip said. "Then he said, 'Gotta go low, gotta go low,' and then we were sideways."

Reutimann did not blame Waltrip for the incident.

"It's just a product of this type of racing. It wasn't Mike's fault," Reutimann said. "The guys in front of us started moving up and when you're pushing, you're at the mercy of the guy in front of you. The guy in front has to tell you what's going on and I probably was a little late there and got us both in trouble.

"I know it tore up a lot of cars, and I hate it ended up happening . . . In those situations, you wish you had a single-car wreck. You don't want to mess everybody else up."

Waltrip said Reutimann handled the situation correctly.

"He warned me," Waltrip said. "He said, 'I don't know what I'm going to do, chill out.' So I was barely against him and then he said at the very last minute, 'I'm going to the middle.' They make that quick move and it just spins them out.

"I've been doing this all week and I haven't spun anyone out. I'm involved in both of them (the early crashes) and I don't know what I could have done different. I was talking to the dudes and I just hate it. I hate it that my cars got tore up and I hate it that you have to be so aggressive early. Maybe you don't. Probably now you can see that probably waiting around would have been a good idea."

Ambrose said he wasn't sure what he could have differently.

“I was just trying to make sure I didn’t drop off the back without finding a good partner and got caught up in a mess, too," he said. "I was trying to play it safe, and it didn’t work out too well for me.”

Rea White contributed to this report.