In the aftermath of the crash between William Byron and Ty Dillon at Las Vegas, much of the blame has been directed at Dillon, factoring his track position and lack of communication. Denny Hamlin, in particular, criticized Dillon’s placement, stating, “Ty, I don’t think, was running well enough to really care about maximizing his entry speed and was running halfway up the racetrack.”

But it’s important to recognize that Dillon was attempting to enter the pit road and was not actively racing for position. Both Dillon and his spotter believed that Byron’s team had been informed of their intentions. Byron said he was unaware of Dillon’s actions, stating, “Nobody said anything to my spotter from what I know. I had zero idea.” This makes it look like it was more due to miscommunication than intentional wrongdoing.

But now, at least one voice has risen speaking in favor of Ty Dillon.

Chris Rice stands firm

Recently, while speaking with Sirius XM, Kaulig Racing CEO Chris Rice laid it out: “When I look at what happened, man, we can blame it on a lot of things. But I’m going to tell you it’s unfortunate for us. You know couple of hundred thousand dollars damage for a car that was slow, and then it kicked out the 20. I hurt the 24 in the playoffs, but it’s racing. Ryan, you know you drive the green flags out? I mean, you don’t. When you’re racing, it’s out of the Pit Road that was open.”

Rice’s venting hits the wallet, hundreds of thousands in repairs for Kaulig’s slow car, plus collateral damage to Byron’s No. 24 that dinged his playoff run. Green-flag pits mean chaos, and Rice calls it straight racing, not sabotage.

“You can do what you want to do. You can blame it on what you want to blame it on. Go watch a lot of the guys pit at that place was tied off the bottom. I absolutely go watch the 71 when the 88 passes it. I hate placing blame on somebody that was actually just running his own race. He was doing his own thing. He was doing his own deal,” Rice continued.

Dillon was just pitting his way, not blocking or dirty, standard stuff in a packed field. Rice points to other drivers hugging the bottom for pits, saying Dillon’s move was par for the course, not foul play.

“Trying to make the best of it, and you know, dude. I’m not the guy who’s going to sit here and take up for my driver. But what I am going to say is they was doing their own thing they were. I don’t feel like they were in the wrong. You would have never seen his hand outside the window. I don’t care he could have had his hand all the way out. The only person you could have seen a hand out the window, but everybody else you’re not going to see it,” Rice added.

Even with a hand signal, Byron wouldn’t have spotted it amid the speed differential, like getting rear-ended at a light, it’s on the tailgater. Rice isn’t defending his driver blindly; he’s saying Dillon stayed in his lane, literally.

“I’m not going to say that the green flag was out, guys. It’s called racing. You’ve got to have slow cars to pass so you have a good race. If you don’t have slow cars and it’s just fast cars riding around, it’s going to be an awful race, right? So we were slow that day. He would have passed us in the next corner or whatever. So I hate it for everybody. But I’m not going to take the blame. As you know, you’re sitting at a stoplight and get hit from it back in. You’re going to take the blame that the car behind you hit you,” Rice wrapped.

Slow cars spice up passing, and Dillon’s pit was just that, unlucky overlap, not malice. Rice owns the suck for all sides but draws the line at blame, calling it racing’s raw edge. Rice’s no-blame stance spotlights how fans zero in on Byron’s playoff pain while glossing the bigger picture.

Fans miss Byron’s full-season twist

Denny Hamlin snagged his 60th win and Championship 4 spot at Vegas, but the buzz is Byron’s late wreck: 32 laps out, Dillon slows for a green-flag pit without signal, Byron plows in from second after losing the lead to Larson. Byron’s 36th-place finish drops him 15 points shy of advancing, flipping his title dreams.

But playoffs aside, William Byron went from a 27-point full-season lead over Blaney to tying Larson for the top. Yet fans fixate on playoff unfairness, ignoring that DNF. Suddenly, bad luck matters.

After 26 races of crowning points leaders champions, now wrecks are cries of injustice. Social media lit up with playoff debates and nostalgia for full-season battles, flipping between modern points and old Latford systems to critique the format.

The hypocrisy stings: Is a backmarker’s pit messing with Byron’s playoffs unfair, or does he still have a good shot to win the full-season points? Rice’s defense underscores it, racing’s chaos hits everyone, playoffs or not, and pinning it all on Dillon skips the nuance. Fans want it both ways, but the wreck reshuffled everything, from Phoenix hopes to yearly crown.