Kevin Harvick reacts to devastating William Byron, Ty Dillon wreck at Las Vegas

Last weekend at Las Vegas, William Byron slammed into Ty Dillon’s No. 10 car after some major miscommunication between spotters. Now, the 24 team has taken a hit in points, and if they can’t get things together at Talladega, they could miss the Championship 4.

William Byron is the regular-season champion. He is now 15 points below the cutline. Good news, that’s not an impossible feat to overcome. Byron is within 20 points of third place. So, again, there is no reason to panic. But the 24 team has to lock in.

As a former driver in this format, Kevin Harvick knows how much this stings for Byron. The Cup champion talked about the Dillon incident on his Happy Hour podcast this week.

“Well, there’s a number of things that could have gone a lot better here, you know, when they go back,” Harvick said of the wreck. “The 10 car of Ty Dillon never put his hand out the window. Like, when I was coming to the pit road, I always would kind of weave my car, put my hand out the window to make sure that the guy behind me knew I was coming. Now, the 10 spotter says he told the 24 spotter, and the 24 driver says the spotter never told him. So, there were a number of things that could have gone better here in this situation. But the line was locked down to the bottom of the race track, for the most part.

“And I think from William Byron’s standpoint, he looked and saw the 10 car two car lengths off the white line, which was pretty normal for pit entrance this weekend. I don’t know about a car that’s multiple laps down. He was out of the pit cycle of everybody else by 15 or so laps when he was pitting. So, I don’t think William, William didn’t know he was pitting. William didn’t think he was pitting because of where they were at in the cycle, thinking it was done. Then, all of a sudden, you know, all that just compiled into a bad situation there and a massive, massive wreck.”

Kevin Harvick knew what William Byron was thinking in his post-race interview. At the care center, it was obvious that the wreck had a massive impact on him. He was still trying to understand what had happened.

“I think for me, the thing that caught my attention when he was doing his post-race interview, or at the medical center, was just, it knocked him to his knees. … Yeah, he was devastated,” Harvick continued. “Said it, right? It’s just that time of year when the implications of something like that happening, and I think he feels like, whether he knew or didn’t know, it was his responsibility to not hit that car.”

On Wednesday, Kaulig Racing fired spotter Joe White. White confirmed the news on his social media page. Chris Rice, Kaulig Racing CEO, defended his driver in the incident this week in the media. So, it appears that everyone is now moving on from Las Vegas.