Why Brad Keselowski escaped unscathed after William Byron’s car landed in his rear window at Watkins Glen

Another late-race caution led to another late-race restart at the Go Bowling at The Glen race earlier this month. And as it typically does, the result was chaos for NASCAR Cup drivers as they fought for the same real estate, like William Byron and Brad Keselowski who came together, with the help of Joey Logano and put the race back into yet another full-course caution. The chain of events ended with Byron’s No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet launching into Keselowski’s — with the front end jammed into the rear quarter window of Keselowski’s No. 6 RFK Racing Ford.

The whole thing looked fairly alarming at a glance, especially as this type of incident is quite unusual for road courses. To happen, it relied on Byron’s car to have just the right approach angle, with Keselowski turned at also the perfect angle, to end with Byron’s car launching up into the rear quarter panel of the No. 6 so that his helmet was just inches away from Byron’s splitter and tire. And just seconds later, both were able to drive away without issue. But that wouldn’t have been the case had it not been for an update made to the cars following another unrelated incident just the year before.

NASCAR Cup at Talladega Superspeedway in 2023 — Kyle Larson was racing at high speed in a large pack of race cars when an impact sent his car up the banking of the track in front of oncoming cars. Ryan Preece could not avoid Larson and hit the right side of Larson’s car at high speed. The outcome left damage to Larson’s safety cage and a piece of tubing coming loose. 

Following Larson’s incident, NASCAR R&D studied his damaged car to understand what happened and how to prevent something like that from creating more damage. They focused on reinforcing the right side of the car but also realized that they could add additional tubing to the left rear corner of that center section to protect the driver even more.

The tube was intended as additional support for the center section overall, but it also created another barrier to help protect the driver from directly behind their seat. That’s what helped protect Keselowski at Watkins Glen.

Keselowski wasn’t relying on the strength of that safety cell to minimize a wall impact but instead the new piece of tubing acted as a barrier — catching Byron’s splitter as it was jammed through the rear window at speed. In photos shared by RFK Racing on social media, we can even see where the…