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William Byron has perfect response for his 'pass in the grass' at Charlotte

Nick Profile Picby:Nick Geddes•05/28/24•

NickGeddesNews

William Byron
Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports

There weren’t many significant moments during Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but William Byron’s pass through the grass, well, turf on the front straightaway certainly was one of them.

As Ty Gibbs and Tyler Reddick battled side-by-side, Byron ducked down to the bottom, clipping the turf and executing the pass on both of them. A highlight so neat, NASCAR had to ask Byron if he was serious.

The answer to that question is yes, Byron was indeed very serious when he made the pass of the night.

Byron had a car that was victory lane worthy, but unfortunately, that’ll be a what-if in the record books. NASCAR’s inefficiency with drying the track due to humidity following a rainstorm forced the sanctioning body to call the race after just 249 laps. NASCAR credited Christopher Bell, leading at the time of the delay, with the victory. Byron, meanwhile, finished P3.

“Our race was good,” Byron said after the race. “Our No. 24 Liberty University Patriotic Chevy was really good the whole race, but then we got a little bit of wall contact there and bent the toe just a little bit. That was a bummer, but I still feel like we had good potential in the car. It was just hard to put it all together, but we came home with a third-place finish and that was a solid day for us.”

Kyle Petty: The most exciting thing we saw at Charlotte was William Byron’s ‘pass in the grass’

While he didn’t get win No. 4 on the season, Byron did get his Dale Earnhardt moment.

“The most exciting thing we saw yesterday was William Byron’s pass in the grass,” Kyle Petty said Monday. “It was not a pass in the grass, yes he passed, but it was astroturf, they paved that. They put turf over that for safety reasons so there’s no longer grass out there.

“Even the great pass in the grass with Bill Elliott and Dale Sr. was not a pass. They maintained their positions, that’s just a great name for a piece of art.”