On the Lap 148 race restart, the pair were running side-by-side when Elliott in the #9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro got loose.
His car shot up the road and collected the #20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry.
Both cars violently hit the wall, causing significant damage to the SAFER Barrier that necessitated extensive repairs and a lengthy delay.
Both drivers were able to extract themselves from their respective cars without injury.
Commentators and drivers were left aghast by the crash.
Bubba Wallace called it “the scariest hit I’ve ever seen” over his radio.
“I haven’t seen that hard a hit in a long time,” said commentator and NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“The impact of that #20 car was insane.
“I don’t know if you’ll see a car hit a wall harder than that and our drivers get out and walk away because of all of the research and development.
“Years and years of hard work by countless individuals to make the race cars safer, the walls safer.”
Contact between @chaseelliott and @CBellRacing brings out the yellow on Lap 148. pic.twitter.com/R4qc5Fv61k
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 7, 2026
Elliott said he was “fine” after the crash.
“Totally my fault. I feel really bad for Bell and taking him out,” said Elliott.
“I was just trying to run in the bottom and kind of make use of our fresh tyres and try and at least get to second.
“I got in there, got free, and thought I was going to spin, and was kind of committing to spinning out.
“As soon as I started to commit to spinning, it just hooked up and hooked a right and unfortunately sent Christopher into the wall super hard and me there shortly behind.
“Just racing really hard. I felt like that was a turning point in the race. We needed to make something happen and stepped over the line again and paid for it.”
At the time of the caution, the race was led by William Byron in the #24 Hendrick Motorsports Camaro.
Spire Motorsports’ Daniel Suarez was second while Ross Chastain was third for Trackhouse Racing. Carson Hocevar was fourth for Spire while Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson was fifth.
Shane van Gisbergen was running 22nd at the time of the yellow.
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