William Byron (right) and Rudy Fugle (left) standing on pit road during pre-race ceremonies for the South Point 400 from Las Vegas Motor Speedway. (Photo: Christopher Vargas | Overbey Photography)
LAS VEGAS — The playoffs have always been known for creating drama and William Byron’s day was no exception to that clause. What was looking like a promising day and chance at victory during the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway turned into a devastating crash and a significant deficit to the Championship 4 cutline heading to Talladega in the coming weekend.
Throughout the Round of 8 opener, the No. 24 showed the intermediate pace that it has displayed throughout the entire season. Top five speed was a given for this team, as they usually always show speed right of the trailer heading into practice and qualifying. Byron started fifth in the running order on the day, which is good for his 13th top five starting position on the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series campaign.
The race started off good for the Hendrick Motorsports group as the No. 24 drove cleanly through the rest of his playoff competition and won Stage 1, but there was a larger threat looming in the background of a solid start to the day. That threat was none other than teammate Kyle Larson.
For a majority of Stage 2, Larson slowly put a two second gap on Byron, and it was clear by that point that the back-to-back Daytona 500 winner would have to pull a radical move to get some track position on the No. 5 before it was too late to catch him.
Larson easily went on to win Stage 2, and the final segment of race started in almost the same way that Stage 2 started. Larson slowly but surely inched away from the rest of the field, but Byron kept the No. 5 a little bit closer this time around, giving the No. 24 a chance to jump Larson on the pit cycle and retake the lead.
As for that chance, Byron and his crew executed to perfection, coming a lap before the No. 5 and eventually passing Larson once he rejoined the field from his scheduled service. The lead that Byron found lasted for about nine laps, when the chaos that the playoffs produce came out to play.
On Lap 231 in Turn 2, Byron washed up the racing surface on his own, nearly sending his racecar clean into the wall and ending his day. While that occurred, the Zack Brown Band inspired No. 5 drove right by the struggling No. 24, and Byron was yet again back on the offensive with a gap to make up.
William Byron (front) rips his No. 24 Relay Payments Cheverolet through Turn 4 during the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. (Photo: Christopher Vargas | Overbey Photography)
Byron started to show pace in his car that was not present for all of Stage 2 when the gap started to lower by a half-tenth of a second every lap, but those laps were numbered for the hard-charging N0. 24 machine.
On Lap 235, near the entrance to pit road without an evident warning, lap car Ty Dillon was making a move to pit road for service, with Byron at full throttle coming out of Turn 4. At that point, there was no slowing down for Byron, and a horrific collision occurred between Dillon’s No. 10 Sugarland Shires Chevrolet and Byron’s No. 24 Relay Payments Chevrolet, marking the end a strong day for the regular season champion with high hopes of winning his way into a chance for his first championship in Phoenix.
The collision was scary, based on the fact that the No. 24 was in pieces all over the frontstretch and that there was little to no communication that Dillon was committing to a pit stop while running around the leaders.
“If I would have known or had any indication, I would have hedged higher and I just ran full speed into the back of him,” said the veteran Hendrick Motorsports driver in his comments with NASCAR.com after his race concluded. “I’m fine, I just had no indication. Even as (Dillon) was coming off the bottom, I thought he missed the bottom a little bit, and by the time he started slowing down, I was in the back of him.”
Fortunately, Byron and Dillon were both okay after the accident. The only problem for Byron now is that his team is now below the Championship 4 cutline, with the eventual chaos that can consume any of the playoff drivers at Talladega and Martinsville in the coming weeks. The No. 24 currently sit 15 points below the cutoff, chasing down one of the most consistent drivers on the season in Chase Briscoe.
The Round of 8 is key to making a strong run for the championship, and Byron is well aware of that heading out of the desert.
“Everything has to go right in the Round of 8, and that’s something major that went wrong that was out of our control,” Byron remarked.
