William Byron Breaks Silence on NASCAR Shutdown

In less than a month from now, the NASCAR Cup Series field will have finished racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and be done with its schedule for July. Between then and the next race which will be on August 11, there’s a 21-day break that teams can benefit from. Talking to the press in Nashville, Hendrick Motorsports star William Byron underlined the breather’s importance.

He said, “It’s definitely a good, much needed, break for a lot of the teams. It gives people the chance to reset and there’s probably a little better product because everyone’s probably got a little more energy in their interviews and things like that as we go down the stretch.” Continuing, he touched upon how other sports including Formula 1 have more significant no-work shutdowns.

William believes that NASCAR ought to take a look at some of those other avenues and decide what the best course for the future is. He also mentioned that he had listened to RFK Racing co-owner Brad Keselowski talk about the matter, when the RFK driver-owner opened up on his views recently while in an interview with Kevin Harvick.

Brad Keselowski wants the NASCAR industry to shut down midseason

The core of Keselowski wanting the sport to shut down all racing activities in the midst of a season comes from the idea that every single member of the crew is an ambassador of the sport. He believes that everyone in the garage plays a crucial role in creating an impact on the fans and that they need to be in a positive and fresh mindset to do so in the best manner.

He told Harvick, “The biggest reason why I think it is important is our sport really relies on this ambassador-type relationship whether it be with our fans or the junior level. We need the whole garage area to be in a good mindset and not be burned out.” Unfortunately for him, the idea did not strike a great chord with the other team owners when he shared it.

How sports like Formula 1 differ from NASCAR in this is, that they’ve got breaks where the teams are mandatorily prohibited from working on car design, development, planning, or meetings. Hopefully, such a cushion will come to be a reality in NASCAR as well. For now, Keselowski has Byron on his team.