During a Lap 35 final stage at San Diego, Sam Mayer clipped the inside wall, shooting him across the nose of Anthony Alfredo and directly into the concrete wall lining the outside of Turn 1.
At least 23 cars were involved in the violent crash according to The CW, and NASCAR immediately red-flagged the event. It was the second red flag of the race, with the first one caused by a metal cover that came up and damaged a car.
Mayer was uninjured, but very upset over the radio. "I have to be one of the worst race cars drivers to ever touch this sport," said Mayer. "I'm so sorry. Embarrassing."
While the wreck began with Mayer and Alfredo clobbering the outside wall, moving it several feet, several drivers directly behind them had nowhere to go.
NASCAR couldn't just put the wall back in place either, and track workers had to fully remove the affected section and replace it, which took about 45 minutes.
More angles of the crash. https://t.co/KMsZWge1wz pic.twitter.com/WvQKR7124C
— The CW Sports (@TheCW_Sports) June 20, 2026
Among those who sustained varying levels of damage:
Alex Labbe, Sheldon Creed, Jesse Love, Justin Allgaier, Sammy Smith, William Sawalich, Brent Crews, Brandon Jones, Austin Hill, Harrison Burton, Dean Thompson, Jeb Burton, Blaine Perkins, Andrew Patterson, Ryan Sieg, Sam Mayer, Brennan Poole, Preston Pardus, Jeremy Clements, Brad Perez, Austin Green, Leland Honeyman, and Anthony Alfredo.
Mayer apologetic, Alfredo sore
After being released from the infield care center, Mayer could only apologize for the costly error.
"First off, I just want to say sorry to everybody in the field," said Mayer. "I'm looking at all the people who were involved in the crash and it's literally everybody. Just sorry to all the people who have to put work in now because of my mistake. Just brutal. Definitely hate that for everybody ... I mean, what am I doing? I got to be better. I'm gonna learn from this, I'm gonna be better. You gotta stay locked in, no matter what happens to you."
On why he made the error, Mayer explained: "The visuals are hard here, with not having an inside catch-fence and it's hard to see the inside wall when you're following people. Just not putting my car in the right place, unfortunately. I was conservative all day with that, and I knew it was getting down to crunch time and I had to be a little bit more aggressive on restarts ... I felt like I was going to have a pretty decent run, and I just got a little too aggressive."
Mayer concluded that he's "gonna have to go around the whole garage and apologize, and that's never a fun feeling."
.@sam_mayer_ expresses frustration with himself following the scary crash.
— The CW Sports (@TheCW_Sports) June 21, 2026
Glad to see Sam is OK. pic.twitter.com/4MNgPjDaL6
Alfredo also hit the outside wall a ton, and admitted to being a bit 'sore' after being released from the infield care center.
"I'm fine, thankfully," said Alfredo. "That was by far the biggest hit of my entire life by a mile, and I've hit pretty hard a few times. Just knocked the wind out of me, and I banged both my legs up a little bit, but my left's pretty sore. The infield care center did a great job helping me out there. I just had a little trouble getting out of the race car, but I haven't even seen a replay. This is the first time, it's a little spotty for me. Sam apologized to me in there, so I guess it was his fault, but that's a mess."
