“If you’re sitting at a stop light and you get hit in the back-end, are you going to take blame that the car behind you hit you?”
Update: NASCAR Spotter Fired
On Sunday, the NASCAR Cup Series raced at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It was the opening race in the Round of 8 for the NASCAR Playoffs.
With just 31 laps to go, Ty Dillon was on the brake to get to the pit lane. To get the optimal entry to the pit lane, he was a half-lane off the bottom lane.
Behind him, Byron was running 2nd and on the gas around the inside lane. He drove right into the back of Dillon. Both cars were destroyed.
Watch the video of the William Byron and Ty Dillon crash below.
Dillon was pitting off-cycle from the rest of the field and Byron was not prepared. The day was over for both drivers.
Byron is a playoff driver. Both cars run under the Team Chevy banner.
NASCAR points after Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Chris Rice comments
“Here’s the situation, the No. 10 car hasn’t been great over the last few months, I’m not even going to hold back on that one,” Kaulig Racing CEO Chris Rice told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
“We were like 1 second off, all day. So, whether we need to be on the bottom or the top or the middle. I mean, we’re slow and we’re on different pit strategies than everybody else.”
“It’s a whole other race outside of what the guys are doing, leading. As far as the playoffs go, man I hate that.”
“I spoke with Ty yesterday for quite a long time about how we can get better. This weekend, we wasn’t even there. I think we were still running at Kansas, we wasn’t even in Las Vegas.”
Not taking blame
“When I look at what happened, we can blame it on a lot of things. For us, it was a couple hundred thousand in damage for a car that was slow. It hurt the No. 24 in the playoffs.”
“But man, it’s racing. The green flag is out. Pit road is open. You can do what you wanna do. You can blame it on what you wanna blame it on.”
“I hate placing blame on somebody that was actually just running his own race. I don’t feel like they were in the wrong.”
“You would have never seen his hand out the window. I don’t care, he could have had his hand all the way out the window. You’re not going to see it, they sit too far back in the racecar. You can’t see out of those cars anyway.”
“Those things are hard to drive now. William was probably on his own agenda. I heard what his spotter said, that the No. 10 was probably going to go to the second or third lane.”
“But, at the end of the day, it’s not on the No. 10 car. The green flag was out guys. It’s called racing. You gotta have slow cars to pass so you have a good race. If you don’t have slow cars and it’s just fast cars riding around, it’s going to be an awful race.”
“I hate it for everybody. But, I’m not going to take blame. If you’re sitting at a stop light and you get hit in the back-end, are you going to take blame that the car behind you hit you?”
“I don’t think anybody was in the wrong. I think William was doing what he needed to do and Ty was doing what he needed to do.”
Las Vegas Race Results: October 12, 2025 (NASCAR Cup Series)
NASCAR comments
“We’ll review everything today,” Brad Moran stated on Tuesday.
“Obviously, there was some miscommunication. William was in there and he was coming through on the bottom at full speed.”
“The No. 10 moves up a little high and I guess they were planning to come to pit road. Some poor communication in the spotter’s stand. It caught both drivers, I’m sure, off guard.”
“At those speeds and that closing rate, there wasn’t a lot the No. 24 could do at that point. It was an unfortunate incident, William had a great day going, to end it that way, you never like to see that.”
Update: NASCAR Spotter Fired
William Byron and Ty Dillon crash
Links
William Byron | Ty Dillon | Las Vegas Motor Speedway | NASCAR
