CONCORD, N.C.: Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron threw another Hail Mary in Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400 at the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, but a late race spin while trying to chase down Tyler Reddick and Kyle Larson for the win erased any chances of contending for his first NASCAR Cup Series championship.
Byron entered Sunday’s Round of 12 cutoff race in a must-win position and while crew chief Rudy Fugle put his driver into contention for his second win of the season, a series of circumstances in the late laps of the final road course race of the year ultimately proved to be too much to overcome.
Byron’s No. 24 Valvoline Chevrolet Camaro dominated Stage 3, leading a race high 30 laps, but a caution on Lap 88 sent the leaders to pit road including Byron which took their control of the race away.
Several cars stayed out with Byron lining up sixth with 19 laps remaining. Byron on fresher tires was quickly able fight his way back into the top-five, however a late race shove from Tyler Reddick on Lap 90 while battling for third forced him to miss the backstretch chicane.
Byron had to serve a stop-and-go penalty for this mishap which dropped him to 11th where he remained until a Lap 93 caution.
Restarting 11th on Lap 96 – Byron forced his way to sixth when the ninth caution of the day allowed him to again regroup and erase any deficit to the leaders.
On the Lap 102 restart, the two-time NASCAR Cup Series winner continued to make moves and was able to hustle back to third with five laps to go.
While in the tire tracks of Reddick and Larson, Byron stepped over the edge with two laps to go and lost control of his No. 24 Valvoline Chevrolet Camaro – dropping him out of the top-10 and ultimately out of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
Byron finished 11th – the same position he started nearly three and a half hours earlier.
“It was great,” said Byron. “We had a really good car in two of the three races in this Round and today we had an amazing car, probably capable of winning, but just didn’t have things go our way there.
“At that point when I got up to third, my tires were shot, and there were only two laps to go. I wasn’t going to win, and made a mistake to not finish third, but at that point I was just mad.”
Byron expressed frustration on how Reddick raced him around the ROVAL considering that he was a Playoff driver and the RCR driver was not.
“I know it was a mistake, but it doesn’t make any difference,” Byron added. “The awareness there in that situation where a guy is there in the Playoffs and the first guy on new tires is probably going to win the race And there was just a lack of awareness there. I feel like if the roles were reversed, I would be aware.”
Although Reddick owned up to the mistake, Byron knew that his Playoffs hopes were in jeopardy unless he could cycle back to the race lead.
“I just wanted to hear it from him and not take it for granted that it was a mistake,” Byron said. “And yeah, at that point, what do you do?”
Looking back on the latter stages of the race, Byron expressed about the emotions he was feeling – and even though he didn’t win, nor did he make it into the next round of the Playoffs, he put forth the effort to try and make a likely impossible challenge happen.
“At the end I was just at a full rage, so I didn’t really care about finishing third because that wasn’t going to do anything for me in the Playoffs,” he said.
“It sucks now that we didn’t finish third, but overall, we were in position to win. We were leading on the long run, the caution comes out, we pass all the guys on new tires, and we were the first guys on new tires. That’s all you can do.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
