William Byron Sees Race Win Contending Day in Las Vegas Come to a Crashing Halt
By David Morgan, Associate Editor
Luck in Las Vegas can turn on a dime and William Byron found that out the hard way in Sunday’s South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
After winning the first stage and leading three times for a total of 55 laps on the day, Byron had just lost the lead to his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson and was in the process of chasing him back down when his day came to a crashing halt off Turn 4 with just 31 laps left in the race.
As Ty Dillon, who was running in 35th place, two laps down, slowed to head to pit road, Byron was unaware of Dillon’s detour ahead of him and collided with him at high speed, sending both cars spinning and strewing debris all over the race track.
“I had no idea he was pitting…. God damn, what was he doing?” Byron radioed immediately to his crew after the impact.
The heavy damage incurred to both cars would mean it was the end of the race for both, with big Playoff implications for Byron, who would be credited with a 36th place finish on the day.
As a result of the crash, Byron dropped from four points above the cut-off line entering the day to now sitting 15 points out with Talladega and Martinsville ahead to determine who makes it into the Championship 4.
Big trouble for the No. 24 of @WilliamByron! pic.twitter.com/I2fncPZeWW
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 13, 2025
After being evaluated and released from the Infield Care Center, Byron was still shellshocked at the drastic turn his day had just endured, trying to process what had just happened.
“I never saw him wave,” Byron explained as he broke down the incident. “I didn’t see any indication that he was pitting and it was probably 12 to 15 laps after we had pitted, so I thought the cycle was fully over. Nobody said anything to my spotter. From what I know, I had zero idea.
“Everybody’s been wrapping the paint really far around the corner and that’s what I was doing to have a good lap. And I was watching him thinking, okay, he missed the bottom a little bit here and then he just started slowing and I was like, had no idea what was going on.
“So, I’m just devastated. I mean, I had no indication. I obviously wouldn’t have just driven full speed in the back of him like that.”
Byron added that he felt he still had a race-winning car after losing the lead to Byron, but never expected that to have happened at that point in the race.
“We were right there with the 5. I got loose a few laps before and lost the lead, which I was bummed about, but was going to try to get my balance back to a reasonable place. I was a little bit loose that run looser than I expected to be and I was just kind of pacing it.
“I mean, just as good as we were and just as good as the race was going for random shit to happen like that, it just sucks. So, I don’t know. I can’t believe it.
“I obviously would never do that during the cycle. You’re anticipating guys pitting and it just sucks.”
As for Dillon, he noted afterwards that his spotter notified Byron’s spotter that they would be pitting to give them a heads up and did not signal out of his window to let Byron know, explaining that he was relying on the message to be passed from the spotters down to Byron to avoid the incident.
“My spotter told me that he let the 24 spotter know we were coming to pit road. Maybe I didn’t wave him off enough, but I feel like at this level you kind of trust your spotter to do that. I dunno what we do different there,” said Dillon.
“I was about to hit pit road and just take tires and kind of were taking our medicine on the day, unfortunately. Hate it for the Hendrick guys. I hate it for Chevrolet that it happened that way, but I’m not even looking out the mirror at that point. I’m just trying to hit my points to get on pit road and yeah, he hit me hard.
“So yeah, it’s an unfortunate way for that to happen.”
