Coming into this weekend’s ‘Round of 8’ opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the major concern for William Byron was whether the No. 24 Chevrolet had enough speed to advance to the Championship 4.
The NASCAR Cup Series regular-season champion had been in a bit of a backslide in recent weeks, and although his finishes remained decent, it wasn’t up to the high caliber that the Charlotte, North Carolina-native was used to.
So, when the weekend rolled around, and the speed in the No. 24 Relay Payments-sponsored Chevrolet was among the best in the NASCAR Cup Series field, there was clearly no need for the 27-year-old driver to be worried.
Spending a substantial portion of Sunday’s South Point 400 running inside the top-five, including 55 laps pacing the field, Byron looked like one of the favorites to compete for the victory, or at the very least, put himself in a stellar points position heading into the complete unknowns of Talladega Superspeedway.
Of course, that’s until things went awry with 30 laps to go.
Having just forfeited control of the race six laps earlier to Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson, as a result of a huge bobble in Turns 1 and 2, Byron ran into some much more damning issues shortly thereafter.
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Byron had been attempting to close the gap back up to Larson for what would have ended up being the victory — and an automatic berth into the Championship 4 — when suddenly the car in front of the No. 24 slowed dramatically to come to pit road.
The green-and-black No. 24 Chevrolet slammed into the side of Ty Dillon, driving the No. 10 Chevrolet for Kaulig Racing, at the exit of Turn 4, causing a scary-looking wreck for the NASCAR Cup Series postseason contender.
As it turns out, Dillon (who was multiple laps down at the time of the incident) was called onto pit road for a scheduled stop by his crew chief, and in doing so, veteran spotter Joe White waved to Byron’s spotter, Branden Lines, to let the No. 24 know that the No. 10 would be coming to pit road.
It’s unclear at this time what exactly happened, whether White didn’t wave down Lines, waved down the wrong spotter, or maybe Lines didn’t have enough time to relay the information, at this point it doesn’t matter, though, because it’s resulted in a NASCAR Cup Series post-season driver crashing out of a race.
“We were pitting. My spotter said he waved off and let his spotter know behind that we were pitting,” Ty Dillon told members of the media after exiting the infield care center. “I wasn’t even looking out of the rearview [mirror], I was just focused on hitting my marks getting to pit road. I don’t think I was egregiously high or anything, just trying to get on pit road, and the next thing I knew, I was getting clobbered.”
RACE RESULTS: 2025 NCS South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
“I hate to say it, but I believe it’s on them. I probably could have waved them off more egregiously, but I don’t know if he’d see that. I hate to ruin their day, but I don’t even know what we would do differently there.”
In speaking with members of the media after the accident, Dillon says that the way things went down in Sunday’s South Point 400 at Las Vegas is the same exact way they’ve been doing green-flag pit stops all year — with Joe White informing spotters of cars they are racing around that they’ll be coming down pit road.
“I do [wave out the window], sometimes, if I’m really racing hard with somebody, but I think William [Byron], at the part where I would wave out down the backstretch, he was so far back that I don’t know if he would have been able to see, or if I’d even get it out car enough, but usually I rely on my spotter to let everyone know, and my spotter said he let everyone know.”
For Dillon, the incident doesn’t mean a ton to his Kaulig Racing team, outside of a destroyed racecar. The No. 10 Chevrolet was already having a dismal afternoon running outside the top-30, so the race-ending crash didn’t do a ton to dampen his finishing position.
On the other hand, no matter who was at fault, the ramifications of the incident for Byron are immense, as the driver of the No. 24 Chevrolet heads into next weekend’s event at Talladega Superspeedway sitting below the cutline. Not only that, but the team has struggled mightily in the Fall Martinsville event over the last two seasons.
“I didn’t know [he was pitting],” Byron said. “If I would have known or had any indication, I would have pitched higher and not just run full-speed into the back of him. So, that was a huge impact, but I mean, I’m fine. I had no indication, like even as he was coming off the bottom, I just thought he was missing the bottom a little bit, by the time he started slowing down, I was in the back of him.”
Now, with a 36th-place finish at Las Vegas, and the two unpredictable racetracks of Talladega Superspeedway and Martinsville Speedway on the horizon for the next two weeks, the No. 24 Chevrolet could really be in danger of missing the Championship 4 — after being involved in deciding a champion the last two years.
“[I’m] just bummed out,” Byron added. “These opportunities are few, and we had a really good car with potential to win, and it’s just everything has to go right in this ‘Round of 8’, and to have something major that went wrong that was really out of our control.”
“We just got to probably go win one of these next two, so yeah, it doesn’t really change anything,” Byron added.
As far as speaking with Ty Dillon and his spotter, Joe White, Byron says that aside from stewing over the situation for a couple of hours, there probably isn’t any type of intervention that needs to happen.
William Byron will head to Talladega Superspeedway next weekend, as the winner of this February’s DAYTONA 500, looking to either close a 15-point deficit to bubble driver Chase Briscoe, or park his No. 24 in Victory Lane.
