A great start to Saturday's NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Kansas Speedway quickly and literally turned upside down for Carson Kvapil.
KANSAS CITY, Kansas -- A great start to Saturday's NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Kansas Speedway quickly and literally turned upside down for Carson Kvapil.
After starting on the pole, Kvapil raced William Byron for the lead on lap two. Then, Byron's car got loose off of turn two and tapped Kvapil's car, causing him to overcorrect the car and hit the outside wall.
At the same time, Parker Retzlaff's car was right there to hit Kvapil's right-rear quarter panel, sending him airborne and rolling over twice.
"That was not too fun. I didn't think it was going to flip over like that but once it started doing that, it didn't really seem too bad," Kvapil said to CW. "That was one heck of a ride. I was not ready for that."
The incident drew a red flag and an apology from Byron.
"Sorry about that I knew we were three-wide late but I was already coming off the corner," Byron said on the radio.
Kvapil was more concerned about crashing a car that he felt had a lot of speed.
"They brought a really fast racecar and I was just hoping to get through the first couple of laps and then kind of get sorted out and fall in line," Kvapil said to CW. "Just got tight and it didn't work out."
Retzlaff reiterated what the replay showed: He had nowhere to go.
"I didn't really have any time to react to it," Retzlaff said to CW. "I tried to get slowed down but just couldn't get slowed down enough."
Retzlaff was more upset about the aggressive racing and crashing out so early.
"I didn't really have any time to react to it. I don't know, it was just a very aggressive start that just, I guess, caused a wreck that really wasn't necessary to happen that early in the race. We knew we had a competition 20 laps into the race and we have wrecked, basically, two or three really good cars," Retzlaff said to CW. "I'm upset for all the guys on the No. 99 car."
Almost immediately before the incident that led to Kvapil's flip, Josh Bilicki, Luke Baldwin and others made contact in turn two and spun, which likely would've triggered a caution on its own before the Kvapil incident.
Pending any disqualifications, Retzlaff and Kvapil will finish 36th and 37th, the last two finishing positions. Immediately after the incident, that dropped Kvapil from fifth to eighth in points, 54 points above the cutline -- and Retzlaff from ninth to 11th (+14).