Indeed, the day at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was supposed to be windy. But did anyone imagine that the wind would collect a trash bag and slam it onto William Byron’s Chevrolet Camaro? Certainly not. The Hendrick Motorsports icon, who was looking to build on his Daytona 500 victory, found it equally disappointing and funny as he spoke to the reporters after registering a top-10 finish.
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“It seemed to get stuck somewhere underneath,” he said. “I don’t really know. I just know my temps went from 200 or whatever to 350 in like, 10 seconds. I never had that happen. It was on the front of the nose at first and we got a black nose so it’s probably really hard to tell that and then once it got kind of further up the nose… then it overheated.”
Byron, who led Stage 1, fell back by a lap as the black trash bag cruised stealthily on the black grille of the #24 car on lap 48, with just over 30 laps to go till the end of Stage 1. With the trash bag stuck to the nose of the Chevy, Byron felt the temperature of his car rising and had to pit to get the nuisance cleared away before he could return to the race.
William Byron looks forward to Phoenix
There was nothing the Chevy Star could do about the trash bag. However, he found solace in the fact that he was able to gain some points after his P10 finish. He was quite impressed with how fast his car was throughout the race. “Nothing we can do about that but the second half was just sloppy… but still getting top 10…car was super fast and we’ll go into Phoenix,” he added.
Well, it can be said that Byron has been strong before at Phoenix Raceway. Last year in March, Byron won his second consecutive win of the year at Phoenix, holding off his teammate Kyle Larson, who led a race-high 201 laps, and others like Ryan Blaney, Tyler Reddick, and Kevin Harvick.
In the Championship 4 at Phoenix last November, he managed to put off a 4th-place finish as well. All things considered, there is no reason for him to not be in the top five or perhaps even the top three next week.
