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Sport
Michelle R. Martinelli

William Byron spun Denny Hamlin under caution at Texas, and there’s ‘no excuse’ for NASCAR officials missing it

Denny Hamlin William Byron NASCAR Texas Scott Miller Martin Truex, Jr. NBC NBC Sports

Welcome to FTW’s NASCAR Feud of the Week, where we provide a detailed breakdown of the latest absurd, funny and sometimes legitimate controversies and issues within the racing world.

Unlike our most recent NASCAR Feud story – which was entirely a joke based on a real 11-year-old feud — this one is serious and reflects poorly on multiple parties involved.

Sunday’s AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 500 at Texas Motor Speedway opened the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs Round of 12 after four drivers were eliminated from the postseason field the previous week. And although Tyler Reddick — once a playoff driver but one of the first four dropped from championship contention — won the race, the ignited feud between Denny Hamlin and William Byron took centerstage.

Basically, Byron showed his displeasure with Hamlin during the race by hitting the back of the No. 11 Toyota. It’s certainly not the first time this has happened in NASCAR, but it happened under caution, which is still dangerous and considered far more unacceptable.

Let’s dive into what happened and how on earth NASCAR missed this moment, despite cameras literally everywhere.

How it all started

The caution in question came out on Lap 269 of the 334-lap race on Texas’ 1.5-mile track as the result of a crash. But prior to that, Hamlin and Byron, both playoff drivers, were racing each other hard, and Hamlin in the No. 11 car forced Byron in the No. 24 Chevrolet up the track before scraping the outside wall.

Most drivers wouldn’t be particularly happy about that, but it’s also the result of intense racing, especially in an unpredictable postseason with non-playoff drivers dominating at the end of races when it matters most, winning all four of the first playoff events.

What happened under caution between Byron and Hamlin

Not long after that, Martin Truex Jr. blew a tire — like so many other drivers in Sunday’s Texas race — and wrecked, which brought out the caution flag on Lap 269.

As the cars on track slowed to the 55-mile-an-hour caution speed, Byron pulled up behind Hamlin and hit the No. 11 car’s rear, causing Hamlin to lose control, spin out and slide across the infield grass. It wasn’t enough to knock Hamlin and his Joe Gibbs Racing team out of the race, but it was plenty to leave them all infuriated.

And then, despite this all happening under caution when cars’ positions in the field are frozen, NASCAR not only didn’t penalize Bryon in the moment, but it also didn’t give Hamlin his spot back. So instead of returning to running second, Hamlin was seventh and after pitting, ended up restarting from 19th.

Beyond frustrated, Hamlin and his team vented about the incident on their radios during the race.

“The man wrecks you under caution and he gets no penalty?” Gabehart said on the team’s radio, per NBC Sports. “What are they doing?”

“I’ll give him the penalty if he comes back to me,” Hamlin responded.

Ultimately, Byron finished the race seventh while Hamlin was 10th behind five other playoff drivers.

Byron said he meant to bump but not spin Hamlin

After the race, Byron was, of course, asked about what happened between him and Hamlin, as the two have not previously had any major on-track incidents together leading to a feud. The No. 24 driver said he was frustrated with Hamlin for pushing him up the track and meant to show his displeasure by bumping him. But he added that he didn’t mean to send the No. 11 car into a spin and through the infield grass.

Byron told NBC Sports during his post-race pit-road interview what initially set him off:

“He ran me out of room and bent the toe link. And we’re lucky we finished. It was really, really hard contact. It wasn’t like just a light contact or anything like that. Yeah, I didn’t mean to obviously spin him out over there. But I’m obviously pissed off and just not going to get run like that. We’ve always run so well, raced so well together. I don’t know what it was all about. [Truex] took his air away, he ran out of race track, so he chose to run me out of race track completely.”

He said Hamlin running him up the track was “uncalled for” and confirmed he hit the No. 11 car on purpose. Byron continued:

“I went to go show my displeasure. I didn’t mean to hit him and spin him out. There’s a ton of guys that do this and go do something like that. I see it all the time. But yeah, I’m just not going to get run like that. Yeah, there’s really no reason. We’re running second and third, I think, and had a shot to win and killed our car, for sure. So that was a bummer.”

Hamlin, obviously, wasn't happy in the moment or after the race and promised payback in the right moment

During his post-race pit-road interview, Hamlin deadpanned:

“I guess we can just wreck each other under caution. I tried to wreck him back. Yeah, it just — I don’t think we touched. I got to look, but I don’t think we touched. But obviously he sent us into the infield under caution. …

“I’ll just add it to the list of guys when I get a chance, they’re going to get it.”

Hamlin’s list certainly includes Ross Chastain, with whom he’s had multiple incidents this season. But like the No. 11 driver has said in the past, drivers self-policing has a tendency to work out.

He continued:

“It all just works itself out. We’ll be racing each other at some point. and He’ll lose a lot of spots because he’s racing me. so it’s just, This is hard racing, obviously. I’m fine with hard racing.

“But wrecking me under caution is obviously not what we were bargaining for. … Obviously it cost us all of our track position. I thought we were in a great position to win until we got sent back to 20 something there.”

Somehow NASCAR missed the whole thing

(Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images)

Despite the replays of Byron spinning Hamlin being repeatedly shown on NBC Sports’ broadcast on the USA Network and being all over social media, NASCAR officials inexplicably missed what happened, which is why they didn’t penalize Bryon on the spot.

After the race, NASCAR senior vice president of competition Scott Miller addressed the situation and explained that officials missed what happened. He said:

“When we were in the tower, we were paying more attention to the actual cause of the caution up there and dispatching our equipment. The William Byron-Denny Hamlin thing, we had no eyes on. We saw Denny go through the grass. And by the time we got a replay that showed the incident well enough to do anything to it, we had gone back to green. But I’m not sure that that issue is completely resolved as of yet.”

More from Miller:

“If we had seen that good enough to react to it real time — which we should have, like no excuse there — there would probably have been two courses of action. One would have been to put Hamlin back where he was, or the other would be to have made William start in the back.”

Hamlin was not pleased to learn NASCAR missed his spin and expressed his frustration later on Twitter.

However, NASCAR could still deal Byron a penalty for his conduct sometime this week.

UPDATE: NASCAR announced Tuesday afternoon that Byron has been fined $50,000 for making contact with Hamlin under caution, and the No. 24 team has been docked 25 driver points and 25 owner points.

But Hamlin and co. weren't the only ones mad about that

Several people in the racing world, including Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick, sympathized with Hamlin and the No. 11 team, noting it’s totally unacceptable that with cameras everywhere NASCAR still missed what happened.

No matter how you look at it, this isn’t a good look for Byron, but it also definitely makes NASCAR look bad.

And now with four playoff races down, only six remain in the 36-race season with both Byron and Hamlin still in title contention. How or when Hamlin delivers his payback to Byron could dramatically affect the championship race.

Byron is currently third in the playoff standings, and Hamlin is sixth. Both need to remain among the top-8 drivers to advance to the next playoff round.

UPDATE: With the penalty (see above), Byron is now 10th in the playoff standings, while Hamlin moved up one spot to fifth.

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