William Byron Lucky After Never Seen Before Occurrence Almost Ruined His Las Vegas Outing

During the Pennzoil 400 race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron encountered an unexpected and rather peculiar obstacle. Byron, who previously emerged victorious at the Daytona 500 earlier, was aiming for another win in Las Vegas. However, fate had other plans for the driver. Despite a promising start to the race, the incident unfolded during Stage 1 at the Pennzoil race when William Byron found himself battling an unexpected adversary of a rogue trash bag, threatening to derail his quest for victory.

It wasn’t just opponents who were trying to stop William Byron

William Byron started the race by leading the laps at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday. He was followed by Kyle Busch not far behind him. As the race progressed, Chris Buescher lost control on lap 27 and went on to hit the outside wall. This was followed by a red flag by NASCAR officials, drawing an abrupt end to Buescher’s place in the race.

The race thus restarted with its remaining participants. Upon restart, William Byron found himself trapped in an unprecedented obstacle. In a video uploaded by Bob Pockrass on Twitter, Byron is featured speaking about his peculiar encounter during the race. The post was captioned “I had not seen a bag that big fly on a car before today when a huge bag covered the William Byron grille. Byron speaks about his luck.” Byron was then heard saying, “I never had that happen. I think it was on the front of the nose at first and got a black nose. So it’s probably really hard to tell that. And then once it got kind of farther up the nose, then it was, you know, then it overheated and it got to, it went from, you know.”

“It normally runs like low 200 or whatever and it got to like 290 pretty quick and then just would climb one degree every half second and got to like 350 so nothing we could do about that” he continued. Byron’s Chevrolet Camaro began to overheat due to a trash bag that entangled on the car’s grille. The temperature went up to 350, leaving Byron in desperation of cooling the engine down. Left with no choice, William Byron took to the pit road, got the trash bag removed and returned to the asphalt. However, despite this setback, Byron managed to secure a place in the top-ten.

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Leaving the trash bag aside, Byron has had many memorable runs in his career. Perhaps the most noteworthy one in recent times was his Daytona500 win.

William Byron’s crown jewel achievement

Earlier this year, William Byron made a remarkable win at the Daytona Superspeedway. At the 66th running of the Daytona 500, Byron driving the No. 24 Axalta Camaro ZL1 clinched his first Daytona 500 victory in the NASCAR Cup Series. This victory also marked the return of Hendrick Motorsports to the Daytona victory lane after a decade. Adding to the significance of this triumph, it occurred exactly 40 years since Hendrick Motorsports’ first-ever start in NASCAR’s top division. Byron’s first NASCAR Cup win also marked the Chevrolet’s 26th win at the Great American Race.

Byron’s Daytona win in the 2024 season however, sparked controversies in the racing world. A photo from the finishing moments of the race captured a caution flag being raised. Addressing the issue, NASCAR officials clarified Byron as the clear winner.

“At the end of a race, we use all available resources. So we’ll use [the time the] caution comes out. We’ll use video, timestamps. At the time of caution, it was the 24 [car] over the 48 [car].” said Elton Sawyer, the NASCAR senior vice president of competition. William Byron edged out Alex Bowman by the slimmest of margins. Apart from that, NASCAR’s official X handle also uploaded a video clarifying their stance.

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It’s safe to say, William Byron is thus having a good season despite the odds he faced at the Daytona and Las Vegas.