Sam Mayer triggers 23-car pileup at NASCAR San Diego restart

A restart incident that takes out nearly half the field is a reminder of how compressed modern short-track and street-course restarts can be — one clip of the inside wall becomes a chain reaction with nowhere to go. The fact that this was the second red flag of the race, with the first caused by a debris issue, points to a difficult day for race control managing a challenging venue. For anyone watching the San Diego race, the Turn 1 wall breach is the kind of moment that reframes the entire event around survival rather than strategy.