By the time NASCAR threw its second red flag of the afternoon at San Diego Street Course, there were damaged race cars everywhere, chunks of temporary wall sitting where they definitely weren’t supposed to be, and one driver wishing very badly he could rewind about three seconds of his life.
With 24 laps remaining in Saturday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Naval Base Coronado, a restart turned into something between a demolition derby and an insurance claim.
Sam Mayer restarted trying to do what every driver was trying to do all day: survive the restart and avoid getting swallowed three-wide.
Instead, he clipped the inside wall entering Turn 1.
That tiny mistake immediately became everybody’s problem.
The contact launched Mayer across the nose of Anthony Alfredo and sent both cars headfirst into the outside concrete barrier at Turn 1. The impact was violent enough that the temporary wall didn’t merely absorb the hit.
It moved.
By nearly three feet.
And because the field had only completed a handful of corners at speed and remained stacked together behind the leaders, the result was predictable and spectacular in all the wrong ways.
Cars arrived with nowhere to escape.
They piled in.
In all 23 cars were collected in the incident, instantly turning one of the most anticipated restarts of the day into a parking lot full of wounded sheet metal.
Among those sustaining damage were Brent Crews, Sammy Smith, William Sawalich and Jesse Love.
Seeing the wall displaced, NASCAR had no choice but to immediately stop the race.
This marked the second red flag of the afternoon. The first had already come after a utility cover came loose and damaged Corey Day’s car.
Street racing: where apparently even the infrastructure occasionally joins the competition.
Unlike the utility-cover issue, this one wasn’t a quick fix.
Track workers couldn’t simply push the wall back into place and carry on. The impact damage was severe enough that crews had to remove the entire section and install a replacement before racing could continue.
Mayer climbed from the car physically okay.
Emotionally, not so much.
Before even exiting, Mayer came over the radio and delivered one of the more brutally honest self-assessments you’ll hear from a race driver.
“I have to be one of the worst race car drivers to ever touch this sport,” Mayer radioed. “I’m so sorry. Embarrassing.”
Later, standing outside the infield care center, Mayer wasn’t interested in excuses.
“First off, I just want to say sorry to everybody in the field,” Mayer said. “I’m looking at the people involved and it’s literally everybody.
“What am I doing? I’ve got to be better. I’ve got to be a lot better. I’m going to learn from this.”
Mayer explained that visibility had been difficult all day with no inside catch fencing to help define the wall and admitted he had intentionally become more aggressive on that restart to avoid getting trapped.
It didn’t work.
“I just got a little too aggressive and it bit me today,” Mayer said. “I’m going to have to go around the whole garage and apologize, and that’s never a fun feeling.”
As for Alfredo, who took arguably the biggest shot in the incident, he emerged sore but remarkably composed.
“Oh, I’m fine thankfully,” Alfredo said. “That was by far the biggest hit of my entire life by a mile.”
He admitted his left leg took a beating and he had difficulty climbing out but praised the care center staff.
Then, because race drivers are a different species entirely, he pivoted almost immediately into sponsor obligations and reflection.
“That Chevrolet was flying today,” Alfredo said. “If we had to have a big wreck like that, I’m glad it was at the front racing for the win and not in the back.
“It just doesn’t always go your way. And it’s sometimes it’s not in the cards. So we’ll re rack, rebuild, go to Sonoma, try to haul the mail.”
Not many drivers walk away from the biggest hit of their life and immediately start planning Sonoma.
Anthony Alfredo apparently does.
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
- Sam Mayer Sent the Field Into Turn 1 and the Wall Lost - June 20, 2026
- San Diego Street Course Strikes Back as Utility Cover Spoils Corey Day’s Day - June 20, 2026
- Photos: NASCAR at Naval Base Coronado Friday June 19, 2026 - June 19, 2026