BRISTOL, Tenn: A solid race for Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron came to an abrupt end during Saturday night’s Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.
With less than 20 laps to go in Stage 2 and while running inside the top-10, Joey Gase suddenly slowed directly in the center of the race track, sending Byron into the back of Christopher Bell’s Toyota which ruptured the radiator in Byron’s car and sending the No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE to the garage and done for the night.
Immediately, frustration came over the radio of the No. 24 car.
“Fuck man, I can’t believe that,” shouted spotter Tab Boyd. “That shit box is 18 laps down and he just stopped in the middle of the straightaway. I couldn’t get it out of my month quick enough.”
Byron replied, “I don’t know why he just stopped on the front straightaway, what an idiot.”
The Daytona August winner was credited with a 38th place finish and officially knocked out of the Cup Series Playoffs.
“The No. 51 just checked up in the middle of the straightaway and had nowhere to go. And the No. 95 (Christopher Bell) slammed on the brakes to try to not hit him and I slammed into him because I was on his bumper,” recalled Byron.
“So, just a terrible situation, but not really sure why that happened or what really transpired for him to stop like that. You can’t stop in the middle of the straightaway when everybody is so committed to the top like that. Just ridiculous that that’s what takes us out. I thought honestly we had a shot to run top-five or seven.”
Before the crash, Byron said he had a good car but needed to make an adjustment to get his Hendrick Motorsports team back in contention.
“The car was really, really good, just needed a little bit of track position I feel like. Probably went the wrong way on the last adjustment – tried to get myself turning a little better and it got too free,” added Bryon.
“We just needed a couple good pitstops. We were running probably ninth or tenth there. Just super disappointing – I’ve got to go back and watch that because that was kind of ridiculous.”
Obviously frustrated about how his Bristol race unraveled quickly, Byron felt like his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet team would have been able to persevere and move onto the Round of 12.
“It would have been worse if we just completely ran horrible this first round, but I think outside of Richmond, we were going to have two top-seven finishes,” added Bryon.
“I feel like we were well capable of finishing in the top-five tonight. It was only halfway through the race and we were going to finish top-10 in both stages, probably, and move on from there. So, yeah I don’t really know – things like that, I don’t know, you’ve just got to be more aware I guess than that to check up like that. But I don’t know – I don’t know what happened that would cause that really.”
With the championship out of reach, Byron said he is happy with the performance of his race team and is hopeful that they can continue the speed over the final seven races of 2020.
“Yeah, I think it’s been a great season,” Byron said. “I think that we’ve performed well. I think we would have liked to perform better, based on how we ended last year.
“But we got a win and I feel like really the last five or six weeks, we’ve had all top-10 runs, besides Richmond, which is our worst track. I don’t know – hopefully continue being fast the next few weeks.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
