Dale Earnhardt Jr. reacts to devastating Ty Dillon, William Byron wreck at Las Vegas

One of the big stories coming out of this past Sunday’s Round of 8 opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was the Stage 3 wreck involving William Byron and Ty Dillon. Byron, running second at the time, plowed into the back of Dillon at full speed.

Dillon, off the lead lap, had slowed up in an effort to come down pit road. Byron wasn’t aware and by the time he figured it out, it was too late. Since then, Byron, Dillon, and representatives from both teams have shared their versions of what happened. Byron said he never saw Dillon wave, which the latter confirmed he didn’t because he thought Byron wouldn’t be able to see it.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. said Tuesday that he could understand Dillon’s point. He said that when he raced, his signal to other drivers that he was pitting would happen on the backstretch.

“They were saying Ty didn’t wave. I could understand [that],” Earnhardt said on the Dale Jr. Download. “I didn’t ever really wave out the window because I didn’t really expect them to see it with the way that the car and the greenhouse is, maybe they don’t see the wave. I typically would not do that because I didn’t expect them to see that and the chance of them seeing the wave is really low.

“What I would do every single time is when I come off Turn 2, I weave down the back straightaway really low. That’s my signal that would get their attention. They would go, ‘Oh, that’s interesting, he just drove down four lanes down the bottom on the back straightaway, he must be pitting.’ So, that would have been my wave. Outside of that, if you got cars coming from behind, you definitely wanna pin it to the apron… and Dillon was up the track.”

Fired Kaulig Racing spotter reveals what happened leading up to William Byron, Ty Dillon wreck

Dillon said after the race that his spotter, Joe White, informed Byron’s spotter, Branden Lines, that they would be making a green flag pit stop at a time where the cycle had ended. No. 24 team crew chief Rudy Fugle said Tuesday that White didn’t give clear communication to Lines.

White was fired by Kaulig Racing upon arriving on Wednesday at Talladega Superspeedway ahead of Sunday’s race. As White tells it, he did tell Lines that the 10 car was going to pit. That communication was not interpreted the right way.

“Branden is at the other end of the spotter stand towards Turn 1, so I was like, ‘I got to get to Branden,’” White told Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic. “So, I hustled down there. I didn’t get to him; I didn’t touch him on the shoulder, turn him around, but I got, I would say, four or five feet from him, couple people down, and he turned and looked at me.

“We made eye contact. I pointed to the bottom, twice, and mouthed the words ‘we’re pitting’ – even though I know he can’t hear, and he probably can’t read my lips, but I gestured just like I would do any other person that was pitting. Obviously, that was misunderstood. He thought we were giving him the bottom, and that was not the case.”

William Byron saw his day quickly go from good to bad at Las Vegas

Earnhardt said that Dillon could have been more “deliberate” in showing Byron that he was pitting. At the same time, he was surprised at how long it took Byron to notice.

“There’s a lot of sh*t feelings out on the racetrack, but that’s one of them when you’re pitting under green flag and you’re at one of those racetracks like Las Vegas where you spend a lot of time slowing down on the banking in the groove. Every time, you’re trying to get to pit road fast, but you’re trying to also not get run over. It is very nerve-wracking,” Earnhardt said. “… I think Ty Dillon could look back at it and go, ‘Man, what could I have done to be more deliberate?’ And I’ll say this too on Byron’s side of things, I didn’t see Byron do anything wrong, I was just surprised by how — did you think Byron saw it late? Like it surprised the sh*t out of him?

“Like, when I’m watching the replays, I’m like, ‘Damn, he really didn’t see that until the very last second.’ You got a guy in front of you and you’re racing, but you’re also seeing that car and so Ty’s pretty far up there and starts to slow down and William really doesn’t react to it at all until obviously, it was way too late. … That’s just an unfortunate situation. We could sit here and tell you that Ty could have done this, could have done that, but it didn’t need to happen. Sometimes, those kinds of things do.”

Unfortunately for Byron, he went from, at the very least, securing a top five or 10 finish to finishing 36th. He is now 15 points below the cutline with two Round of 8 races remaining.