TALLADEGA, Ala. — Last weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway produced one of the odder crashes in recent stock-car memory. The outcome stuck in William Byron’s memory, too, and now the circuit’s Regular Season Champion is striving to blot it out.
Byron enters Sunday’s YellaWood 500 (2 p.m. ET, NBC, Peacock, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) at Talladega Superspeedway with a 15-point deficit to overcome in the postseason picture to keep his hopes for a first Cup Series title alive. His position in the pecking order has much to do with his Vegas results in the Round of 8 opener, where his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet careened into Ty Dillon’s No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevy in a wild pit-entry mixup that severely damaged and ultimately sidelined both cars.
RELATED: Schedule, TV info: Talladega | Cup Series Playoffs standings
Byron’s 36th-place day — his worst finish of the playoffs — meant a 19-point downward swing from the plus side of the bubble to the wrong side of elimination with two races remaining in the round: Sunday’s 500-miler and a tense 500-lap finale the following week at Martinsville Speedway. Rather than wallow in the result, Byron allowed himself a brief moment to dwell before trying to turn the page.
“Yeah, I mean, just reflection and just looking at everything for a day or so, and then really just diving into Talladega and trying to look ahead,” Byron said Saturday before qualifying a lucky 13th for Sunday’s start. “I feel like there’s never a truer time to embrace one week at a time than now. We’re just really trying to dive into the details of this weekend and see how I can do a better job in the draft, and so far, I feel good about my preparation. Last spring was a good race for us. But yeah, spent a couple days kind of stewing on it a little bit, but then get past it and move on.”
Even with that approach, the wreck still merited some evaluation — mostly because of its out-of-the-ordinary nature. Byron was running among the top five with 30 laps remaining in the South Point 400 when Dillon’s No. 10 slowed dramatically in front of him in an attempt to enter pit road. Byron had little time to take any evasive action and barreled in, with both cars sustaining terminal damage in the impact.
The miscommunication among spotters ultimately cost Joe White his job as the eyes in the sky for Dillon, who will have Frank Deiny atop the spotters’ stand for him this weekend after a Kaulig Racing personnel shuffle. Byron said he didn’t want to overly second-guess his reaction time, Dillon’s pit-road approach angle or how any signals might have been crossed.
“But in the moment, there were no signs that that was happening,” Byron said. “So in a split second like that, once you realize it, it was too late. But when you go back and you know that that’s going to happen, it’s a lot different to evaluate it and look at it. So you have to make sure you’re not too critical of yourself in that instance because you didn’t have any expectation that that was going to happen, and that’s why it played out the way it did and that’s why it was such a violent crash. From inside the car, there was no sign … there was no wave and there was no difference in (Dillon’s) line. Just looking at the closing rate and seeing him start to slow down, maybe I could have realized that sooner, but that’s all Monday morning when you know looking back that that’s going to happen.
“So in the moment, I just saw a car; I thought he missed the bottom, and I thought, man, and then as soon as I realized he was slowing, boom, it’s too late. I tried to miss him, and that’s why I got a little sideways and on the brakes. But yeah, once I knew he was slowing down, I was maybe four car-lengths back. Just a very, very tough situation, but I’ve moved on from it and feel really good about this weekend.”
MORE: At-track photos: Talladega | Paint Scheme Preview
Rudy Fugle, Byron’s longtime crew chief, said he was operating on the same timetable as his driver.
“I just spent some time with it on Monday,” Fugle told NASCAR.com. “Obviously, on the way home from Vegas, it’s a long flight, so you get to think about it for a long time. But by five o’clock on Monday night, we were moved on fully and focusing on what to do for the final three races. So just trying to claw our way back into the hunt.”
Byron said he didn’t make any significant alterations to his weekly regimen before Sunday’s event, scheduling no additional needed distractions to help put Las Vegas behind him. He added that his initial reaction to the crash was a natural one, with no ill will behind it.
“Yeah, I actually wasn’t bitter. I was just probably in a bit of shock, is what you guys saw after the race,” Byron said. “I just couldn’t believe it. Like, I mean, we do this so often … we pit so often. We do these things. It’s so routine, and it was so not routine that time. The result was not what I expected, so I think that was the emotion … it was shock. But then during the week, it’s just, how do you dive into next week? Yes, there are things I do off the track that get my mind away from the sport. But it’s really just about doing the things you’ve been doing and the routine you’ve been doing. It doesn’t just go away in one day. It just kind of slowly as we get towards Sunday, it’s like, hey, you know, we’ve got another race Sunday and it’s time to get going here.”