KANSAS CITY, Kan. – William Byron gave it his all on Saturday night at Kansas Speedway.
Unfortunately, the Hendrick Motorsports driver couldn’t recover from a loose race car on Lap 253 to ignite a scary crash in the KC Masterpiece 400.
Byron’s No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet broke loose on the bottom in Turns 3 and 4, sending him hard into the outside wall. His car then was lifted off its rear wheels when Ryan Newman plowed into him and trigged a seven-car crash that warranted a 13-minute 13 seconds red flag with 13 laps remaining in the race.
Clint Bowyer, Chris Buescher, Ty Dillon, Matt Kenseth Jamie McMurray were all involved in the sixth caution of the night. All but Bowyer were done for the night.
Byron the 2017 NASCAR Xfinity Series champion said the crash was the worst of his young stock car career.
That one hurt really bad. But, I’m fine,” said Byron. “We took two tires there and couldn’t get it turned on the bottom and then got sucked around at the last minute. It just should have been lower than that. Just couldn’t rotate. Couldn’t cut.
“I think overall, we were trying to kind of push some things there and it just didn’t work out. But, we’re going to wherever is next and that was definitely the hardest hit I’ve been in. But, I’m thankful to be walking, so that’s good.”
Hoping two-tires would be a benefit to score his first career top-10 Cup finish, Byron said the car refused to turn – a contributing factor in the crash.
“It just wouldn’t turn on two tires,” he added. “We were kind of a sitting duck there with that strategy and then I felt like after that, we kind of…. We were a pretty decent car before that, but a lot of guys were on different strategies, so I car got hung up on top, a couple of guys split the middle, and I think we were three or four wide and it was hard to tell or judge, really, how much room I had to my outside and so I just got sucked around there, I guess and got loose and hit the wall.”
Newman said he was a victim.
“We were just an innocent bystander really. They crashed kind of underneath me, in front of me and just got all wadded up. I mean I had no place to go. It’s just unfortunate, kind of a ho-hum race I guess you could say for so long and then to get 14 laps from the end and tear up a bunch of cars like that just kind of sucks.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
