By Sarah Handy, Staff Writer
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla — William Byron had some much-needed momentum heading into the DAYTONA 500 after winning his qualifying race on Thursday evening.
Starting fourth in ‘The Great American Race’ on Sunday afternoon, Byron and the rest of the field only ran 20 laps around the 2.5-mile superspeedway as rain plagued the event.
NASCAR chose to display the red flag and resume racing action on Monday afternoon. As the red flag flew.
Resuming the event in seventh, Byron and his Hendrick Motorsports teammates looked poised to finish the first stage 1-2-3-4.
That all came to a crashing halt for Byron and his No. 24 Axalta ‘Color of the Year Camaro ZL1 1LE on lap on lap 59 of the 200 scheduled laps.
With only seven laps remaining in the first stage, contact between Ricky Stenhouse Jr and Byron sent the No. 24 through the grass before hitting the inside wall hard nose first.
“Just from looking at it further, I think he slid left to cross my bumper and if he would have hit me square, it would have been fine,” said Byron. “But when he was sliding left and hitting me, it moved my car a little left too and, ultimately, it kind of caused him to turn me in the left rear. I’m not really sure how that happens, but it is what it is. I don’t really know what to do differently; just kind of go back, look at it, go onto Vegas and try to do well there.”
“It’s unfortunate. I feel like I don’t know. There’s really no reason to be that aggressive moving across my bumper, but it is what it is. We’ll go on to Vegas and go try to win that one.”