By David Morgan, Associate Editor
TALLADEGA, Ala. – William Byron’s outlook on the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs was thrown for a loop last Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway when he found himself involved in a crash in the waning laps of the Round of 8 opener.
As Byron was trying to regroup and re-engage in battle with his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson in the closing stages of the race, Byron had a massive collision with Ty Dillon as Dillon attempted to get to pit road with 31 laps remaining.
Both cars were waded up in the crash and retired from the race, with the regular season champion going from what looked to be a solid day in Sin City to now having to come from behind (-15 below the cut-off line) to make his second appearance in the Championship 4 – starting with Sunday’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega.
“It’s such a freak deal that it’s very hard to go back and be like, how does this not happen again,” Byron explained of trying to dissect what went wrong in the incident.
“Monday morning quarterback, had I known the situation and what was happening, you know, you can say — oh, would you react differently, would you go right, would you slow down quicker, whatever. But in the moment, there were no signs that that was happening. So, in a split second like that, once you realize it, it was too late.
“But when you go back and you know that that’s going to happen, it’s a lot different to evaluate it and look at it. So you have to make sure you’re not too critical of yourself in that instance because you didn’t have any expectation that that was going to happen, and that’s why it played out the way it did and that’s why it was such a violent crash.
“From inside the car, there was no sign… there was no wave and there was no difference in line. Just looking at the closing rate and seeing him start to slow down, maybe I could have realized that sooner, but that’s all Monday morning when you know looking back that that’s going to happen.
“So in the moment, I just saw a car; I thought he missed the bottom and I thought, man, and then as soon as I realized he was slowing, boom, it’s too late. I tried to miss him left and that’s why I got a little sideways and on the brakes. But yeah, once I knew he was slowing down, I was maybe four car lengths back.
“Just a very, very tough situation, but I’ve moved on from it and feel really good about this weekend.”
Despite the strange twist of fortunes that nearly derailed the season for the No. 24 team, Byron noted that he is putting that all in the past and focusing ahead to the task at hand Sunday at Talladega, where he will roll off from 13th place.
Byron has never won at Talladega before, but has previous superspeedway success that he will hope to lean on, having won the Daytona 500 in each of the last two seasons.
“I feel like there’s never a truer time to embrace one week at a time than now,” said Byron.
“We’re just really trying to dive into the details of this weekend and see how I can do a better job in the draft, and so far, I feel good about my preparation. Last spring was a good race for us. But yeah, spent a couple days kind of stewing on it a little bit, but then get past it and move on.”
Byron added that he isn’t harboring any ill-feelings regarding the incident, but was in a state of shock afterwards after his season took such a sharp detour.
“I actually wasn’t bitter. I was just probably in a bit of shock is what you guys saw after the race,” Byron said.
“I just couldn’t believe it. Like, I mean, we do this so often… we pit so often. We do these things. It’s so routine and it was so not routine that time. The result was not what I expected, so I think that was the emotion… it was shock.”
He explained further that as the days have passed since last Sunday, so has the shock of what happened, to now shifting his mindset to what he needs to do at Talladega this weekend at next weekend at Martinsville.
“But then during the week, it’s just, how do you dive into next week? Yes, there are things I do off the track that get my mind away from the sport. But it’s really just about doing the things you’ve been doing and the routine you’ve been doing. It doesn’t just go away in one day. It just kind of slowly as we get towards Sunday, it’s like –- Hey, you know, we got another race Sunday and it’s time to get going here.”
