Imagine a NASCAR pit stop: lightning-fast, tires flying, fuel pouring—all under 10 seconds. Compared to F1’s slick dance or IndyCar’s raw hustle, NASCAR’s pit game is a gritty, team-powered sprint. But at Darlington this weekend, that sprint turned into a stumble for William Byron and his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team.
They had it all—pole, most laps led, pure dominance—until a pit road flub crushed their perfect race. Byron was electric, grabbing his 15th pole and ruling the track. “I feel like we were in position to have a perfect race,” said Byron with a heavy heart after finishing 2nd. While Rudy Fugle, his crew chief, kept the faith: “I feel like we’ve been faster, we’ve been executing better, and we’re stronger as a team, so I like where we’re setting up to be.” With Tyler Reddick and Christopher Bell closing in at Darlington, executing a clutch pit stop could have saved the race, but that’s where it all went wrong.
Steve Letarte explains William Byron’s pitting error
Former Hendrick Motorsports crew chief for Jeff Gordon’s #24 and Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s #88, Steve Letarte, broke down the events on Sunday. He showcased how #54 Tyler Reddick pitted at Lap 239 when he was running behind William Byron in hopes of getting a run at the #24 after his pit stop. However, while Reddick did end up getting that run, Letarte feels that Byron definitely could have avoided this situation. Byron eventually pitted at lap 244, allowing Reddick to take and keep his lead, and Letarte feels this was the wrong call.
Letarte said, “In today’s world of engineering, there’s no way that the 24 car can lose sight of both Reddick and Bell. He got passed by both cars on that pit cycle…. It’s too far. He needed to come in at like Lap 241, 242 after Reddick.” This exact strategy was used by eventual race winner Denny Hamlin, who pitted exactly one lap after Byron and eventually got a lucky late caution and lightning-fast pit stop to win the race ahead of the #24. Letarte was distraught while watching this display of pitting, and it reminded him of his mistakes with the #24 of Jeff Gordon in the past.
Steve Letarte knows this pain all too well. A former HMS crew chief turned broadcaster, he’s a legend who credits Rick Hendrick for shaping his career. Starting as a teenager at HMS, Letarte climbed the ranks, eventually leading Jeff Gordon to glory multiple times. Their 2007 Darlington win was a gamble that paid off, but not every call was golden.
“There is no way that the No. 24 car can lose sight of both Reddick and Bell.”@SteveLetarte weighs in on the final pit-stop cycle at @TooToughToTame. pic.twitter.com/o7pYY7BK8y
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) April 7, 2025
Steve Letarte likened Byron’s pit road mishap at Darlington to his mistake at the same track with Gordon, saying, “I love the 24 car. They’re a great group. I think Rudy Fugle is brilliant. I mean, these guys fly, but it’s very simple. This is a little bit of a mistake. I made it [too]… I was leading Greg Biffle. I was a crew chief for Jeff Gordon, Greg Biffle running second. We rode and rode and rode and rode, and I let Biffle jump us to pit road. We came out from pit road behind him, and we never passed him the rest of the day. When I talk about this mistake, I can talk about it with some empathy because I made the same mistake at the same racetrack, right?”
Jeff Gordon, now HMS vice chairman, knows Darlington’s tricks too, having raced its changing layouts. After the race, Gordon opened up on Byron’s record-breaking performance amid defeat.
Jeff Gordon becomes the empathetic voice from HMS
William Byron had the Goodyear 400 in his hands—leading 243 laps, dominating both stages, untouchable. Then, boom, it slipped away. Green-flag pit stops flipped the script, and Denny Hamlin roared past to steal the win. Byron finished second, but you could feel the sting. “It sucks,” he told FOX Sports. “I’m sure it’ll sting a lot tonight.” Jeff Gordon, the Hendrick Motorsports legend and vice chairman, watched it all unfold.
He’s been there—seven Darlington wins under his belt—so he gets it. “Well, I mean, obviously, winning the pole and leading all those laps was a dominant performance by the 24 team, so that was great,” Gordon said in a Frontstretch interview. “You know, you gotta finish it off. And these things are hard to get everything to go exactly right for you. I thought they executed flawlessly.” But those pit stops? “That seemed to be the game changer,” he added. You can hear the empathy in his voice. He knows how brutal this sport can be.
Byron was so close to history, nearly matching Jeff Burton’s 25-year-old record of leading every lap. He aced the pole at 170.904 mph, owned the track for hours, but tire management and pit strategy unraveled it. Byron said, “First off, just really proud of my team, to bring that level of effort and preparation and execute like that.” Then it wasn’t. Hamlin’s crew nailed the final stop, pitting in a blistering 9.42 seconds, and that was it—game over.
Gordon’s take cuts deep because he’s lived it. “These things are hard,” he said. Byron’s heartbreak is real, but with a guy like Gordon in his corner, you know he’ll be back, fighting. Darlington’s a beast, and this one’s gonna linger.
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