Byron left in disbelief after Las Vegas crash

William Byron struggled to find the words at times, seemingly in disbelief and still digesting the crash that ended his afternoon at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

He was running second to Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson when he plowed into the back of Ty Dillon in Turn 4. Dillon slowed to come to pit road, which Byron was unaware of, and the No. 24 had nowhere to go. The contact, which occurred on lap 336 of 267, destroyed Byron’s Chevrolet and left him with a 36th-place finish.

 “I never saw him wave, so I didn’t see any indication that he was pitting,” Byron said. “It was probably 12 to 15 laps after we had pitted, so I thought the cycle was fully over. Nobody said anything to my spotter, from what I know. I had zero idea.

“Everybody had been wrapping the paint really far around the corner, and that’s what I was doing to have a good lap. I was watching him thinking, OK, he missed the bottom a little bit here, and then he started slowing, and I had no idea what was going on. I’m just devastated. I had no indication. I obviously wouldn’t have just driven full speed into the back of him like that.”

Dillon did not feel he changed his line or did anything different on that pit cycle when coming to pit road than at any other point in the afternoon. The Kaulig Racing driver admitted he was still trying to compete as hard as he could despite his team struggling throughout the afternoon.

“I don’t think I was egregious in that,” said Dillon of his pit road entry. “Maybe just a lack of information being transferred.”

Byron and Dillon had different views of what communication was shared.

“My spotter told me that he let the [No.] 24 spotter know we were coming to pit road,” Dillon said. “Maybe I didn’t wave him off enough, but I feel like at this level, you kind of trust your spotter to do that. I don’t know what we do different there. … I hate it for the Hendrick guys. I hate it for Chevrolet that it happened that way, but I’m not even looking out the mirror at that point, I’m just trying to hit my points to get on pit road, and he hit me hard. It’s an unfortunate way for that to happen.”

The incident was the second moment in less than 10 laps that changed Byron’s day. Byron was leading the South Point 400 when the car got loose in Turns 1 and 2, costing him the lead to Larson. It happened on lap 232 – four laps before the crash.

“We were right there with the [No.] 5,” Byron said. “I got loose a few laps before and lost the lead, which I was bummed about, but I was going to try to get my balance back to a reasonable place. I was a little bit loose on that run; looser than I expected to be, and I was kind of pacing it. Yeah, as good as we were and just as good as the race was going, for random [expletive] to happen like that – it just sucks.

“I don’t know. I can’t believe it. I obviously would never do that. During the cycle, you’re anticipating guys pitting, and it just sucks.”

Byron fell out of a transfer spot with the DNF. He is 15 points behind Chase Briscoe going into Talladega Superspeedway.