Byron stewed over Las Vegas incident but has turned the page to ’Dega

William Byron is not hanging onto what happened last weekend, but he did allow himself to stew on it for a few days.

Byron saw his race end and his championship hopes take a swing when he ran into the back of Ty Dillon on lap 336 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It was a bizarre incident as Byron was unaware that Dillon was pitting, and was not prepared for him to be slowed in Turn 4 to make his pit road entry. At the time of the crash, Byron was running second in the opening race of the Round of 8.

“I wasn’t bitter,” Byron said Saturday at Talladega Superspeedway. “I was probably in a bit of shock, which is what you guys saw after the race. I just couldn’t believe (it). We do this so often; we pit so often, we do things, it’s so routine, and it was so not routine that time, and the result was not what I expected. So, I think the emotion was shock.

“But then during the week, it’s how do you dive into next week? Yes, there are things that I do off the track that get my mind away from the sport, but it’s really just do the things you’ve been doing. It doesn’t just go away in one day, it’s slow as we get toward Sunday, and it’s like, 'Hey, we got another race Sunday, and it’s time to get going here.'”

NASCAR planned to talk to Byron’s crew chief, Rudy Fugle, and Dillon’s crew chief, Andrew Dickeson, to understand what happened. Byron and Fugle also had the long plane ride home from Las Vegas to go over the incident, and there was more reflection from Byron earlier this week. But he tried to turn the page quickly to Talladega and embrace a “one week at a time” mentality.

“So far, I feel good about my preparation, and I feel like last spring [at Talladega] was a good race for us,” Byron said. “There were definitely a couple of days stewing on it a little bit, but then get past it and move on.”

Byron fell to below the cutline because of his 36th-place finish. It was a 19-point swing for Byron, who had entered the day sitting four points to the good.