The NASCAR street race in Chicago came to an early stop on Sunday after Carson Hocevar kicked off a traffic jam on the city streets on Lap 3.
The Spire Motorsports driver tagged two different walls entering Turn 10 as he ran inside of the top 10. The first hit was to the right side of the No. 77 Chevrolet, which sent it directly into the opposite wall. This destroyed the front end on Hocevar's car and sent it spinning in front of Austin Dillon.
The Richard Childress Racing driver had nowhere to go, so he slammed into Hocevar. Brad Keselowski, Daniel Suarez, Todd Gilliland, Will Brown, and Riley Herbst then all plowed into the wreck.
A replay of the incident on Lap 4. pic.twitter.com/4aWkPLGi8U
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) July 6, 2025
Several other drivers navigated around the wreck. A few sustained some damage. This includes Ryan Blaney, who hit Gilliland, and AJ Allmendinger, who took a shot from Keselowski.
"I didn't see it until the last second," Keselowski said after exiting the race. "I slowed down and I actually felt I was gonna get stopped and then I just kind of got ran over from behind.
"It's just a narrow street course and sometimes there's nowhere to go."
This traffic jam was so significant that NASCAR had to red flag the race to clean it up. The track crews began dragging away damaged and destroyed cars. Hocevar's car nearly made it back to pit road, but one of the tow traps snapped as the front wheels continued spinning.
The red flag delay lasted 14 minutes and 42 seconds. Once NASCAR displayed the caution again, multiple teams headed to the DVP area for repairs. This included those of Herbst and Dillon. However, the repairs were too extensive for the No. 3 team to fix, so Richard Childress Racing called it a day after leaving the traffic jam.
"Carson Hocevar is the biggest dumbass in the entire sport," a frustrated Dillon said over the radio after qualifying inside of the top 10. He added that Hocevar had "wiped out half the field" with his mistake in Turn 10.
The cars involved in the wreck were not the only ones with significant issues under the red flag. Chris Buescher had to pit from fifth with power issues. Kyle Larson, who started at the rear of the field, also complained about power issues.
