LAS VEGAS — William Byron and the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team were back in midseason form during Sunday’s South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Until it came to a screeching halt.
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After taking command of a race for the first time in the 2025 Cup Series Playoffs, Byron won Stage 1 and led 55 laps total during his entire Sunday stint. And while Kyle Larson dominated Stage 2 and was ahead of Byron going into the final cycle of green-flag pit stops, Byron leapfrogged Larson in the running order and was in control of the race in the sprint to the finish after pitting one lap earlier than the No. 5 car.
Byron’s race began to unravel when he wiggled through Turns 1 and 2 on Lap 232, losing the lead to Larson. Five laps later, Ty Dillon was called to pit road, north of 25 laps after the cycle of stops began. Byron didn’t get the message that the No. 10 car was dropping to pit road and plowed into the rear of Dillon.
Just like that, Byron’s race was over, finishing 36th and tallying 19 points.
“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,” a disappointed Byron said. “That was a huge impact. 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.”
Dillon was informed that his spotter, Joseph White, motioned to Byron’s spotter, Brandon Lines, that he was pitting. Dillon said he called off Byron going down the backstretch, though Byron never saw a hand wave out the window or a directional shift of the No. 10 car.
“That’s how we’ve operated all year — the spotter will let him know,” Dillon said. “Some people stick their hands out, and I do sometimes to let people know if I’m racing hard with somebody, but I feel like William — the part that I wave out is down the backstretch, William is so far back then that I don’t know if he could see or if I didn’t get it out far enough.
“Usually, I rely on the spotter to let everybody know, and my spotter said he let the 24 spotter know. I don’t know if it’s a lack of information getting relayed, but that’s a quick amount of time for that to happen. I don’t think I did anything egregious getting on pit road. I hate it for them and hate that it took him out. He was lining up to have a really good day, but I don’t know who that is on or if I could do much different there.”
Byron said he will stew for a few hours before checking his in-car camera to see if Dillon signaled that he was pitting. His mindset doesn’t shift, believing he will need to win at either Talladega Superspeedway or Martinsville Speedway to make the Championship 4 for the third consecutive season.
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“I’m just bummed out,” Byron said of his emotions. “You know that these opportunities are few, and we had a really good car today, in contention to win. Everything has to go right in the Round of 8, and that’s something major that went wrong that was out of our control.”
Rudy Fugle, crew chief of the No. 24 car, was still dejected more than half an hour after Byron wrecked out. Even still, he was pleased with the performance.
“We answered all the questions that everybody was waiting for us to answer,” an upset Fugle said. “We had a top-two car, probably the best car that could compete in traffic and do all the things. That’s what we’re looking to do. It’s tough to take having a great car and not [finishing] well.”
Entering the middle race in the Round of 8 at Talladega Superspeedway (Sun., 2 p.m. ET, NBC, Peacock, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App), Byron is 15 points under, the first driver outside of the four-driver cutoff. The Round of 8 will conclude following Martinsville Speedway on Oct. 26, with the title bout held Nov. 2 at Phoenix Raceway.
