Gotta make sure the car passes post-race inspection.
William Byron won his second consecutive Daytona 500 last night after a wild finish which saw most of the field wreck on the last lap, leaving Byron and Tyler Reddick as the only cars to make it through unscathed and allowing the #24 car to cruise to victory.
WILLIAM BYRON WINS THE DAYTONA 500! AGAIN! pic.twitter.com/hPvnCkcNRa
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) February 17, 2025
But during his celebration, fans noticed something odd: Byron hit the wall during his burnout, and many thought it looked intentional.
BYRON BURNS IT DOWN!
The flamed No. 24 is going back to victory lane at Daytona.#NASCAR #Daytona500 pic.twitter.com/E9EkiT9lMW
— NASCAR on TSN (@NASCARonTSN) February 17, 2025
Now, why would a driver ever hit the wall intentionally during a celebration? Why would they want to damage a car that just won the race? Well that’s an easy one: To cover up something that was illegal on the car.
When a car goes through post-race inspection, it has to meet minimum height requirements to make sure that the car didn’t have an unfair advantage. But if a car wins the race and has damage, well, NASCAR will assume the damage caused the car to to fail the inspection. No penalty, the winner gets to keep his trophy (and the points, paycheck and spot in the playoffs that come with it), and the team can keep bending the rules to get any advantage they can find on the track.
On Friday night, Parker Kligerman found out the hard way that he should have damaged his ride during the celebration when he won the Craftsman Truck Series race, but later had the victory taken away when his truck failed post-race inspection for not making height.
Even former NASCAR driver Landon Cassill acknowledged that drivers intentionally damage their car to pass inspection:
The penalty for finishing a NASCAR race with no damage is that you have to pass post race heights.
Drive it into the fence on the cooldown lap. It’s your only choice. I had no damage in New Hampshire, so they checked my heights: too low, DQ. Later I ran P4 at Phoenix, and made… https://t.co/8ybM6PxeSk— landon cassill (@landoncassill) February 15, 2025
And it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that Hendrick Motorsports has been caught pushing the rules – or even telling their driver that they need to damage the car so that it will pass inspection.
Back in 2011, crew chief Chad Knaus was caught on camera telling Jimmie Johnson before a race that if they ended up winning, he needed to “crack the back of the car” during the celebration so that they had an excuse if the car was found to be illegal during the post-race inspection.
Knaus and Johnson later admitted that the order was to try to “cover their bases” in case the car didn’t fit within the tolerances that NASCAR allows the teams, though they denied that it was because the #48 team was intentionally trying to skirt the rulebook.
But when Byron hit the wall during his burnout yesterday, fans immediately speculated that he had been given the same orders to make sure that his car was legal – or to cover up some sort of cheating:
chad knaus definitely told him to do that
— DennyDeliversYT
(@DennyDelivers2) February 17, 2025
(@DennyDelivers2) Uh Byron hit the wall “intentionally” after the race that’s definitely a 0X
— Flock 2 Fang (@flock2fang) February 17, 2025
@WilliamByron smashed that car off the wall during his burnout
WE ALL KNOW WHY#Daytona500 #NASCAR
— Old Purchase (@old_purchase) February 17, 2025
Y’all peep Byron kiss the wall on the burnout?
— MasonRyne22
(@masonryne22) February 17, 2025
(@masonryne22) fwiw, this explains the Byron bump into the wall during his burnouts. @landoncassill https://t.co/Paj5eg4MmT
— RennPhoto (@RennPhoto) February 17, 2025
Did OJ do it?
— SteelHorseLive (@SteelHorseLive) February 17, 2025
Byron hitting the wall during that celebration…surely that wasn't calculated
— The Grove Bridge (@TheGroveBridge) February 17, 2025
Byron took a page out of @landoncassill book hit the wall after you finish the race
— Chandler Paul (@ChandlerJPaul72) February 17, 2025
OK, y’all who know a lot more about the innards of @NASCAR than me: What was Byron doing with that post-burnout bump into the wall with the left front?
— Kirby Arnold (@kirbyarnold) February 17, 2025
Now, Byron hit the wall with his left front corner, and chances are after 500 miles at Daytona, the front of the car was already beat all to hell anyway from bump drafting other cars. So maybe it wasn’t intentional and didn’t make a difference.
But fans were already suspicious of Hendrick Motorsports before the green flag even waved, after people noticed that the team had slightly altered the wraps on the car ahead of the race – specifically in the left front corner. Were they trying something new there knowing that they would likely get some damage from bump drafting anyway? Was Byron just making sure that he had used the front bumper enough to cover up their cheating? Or are people just looking for a conspiracy because it’s his second Daytona 500 win in a row?
I guess we’ll never know…but with the conspiracy theories already flying, I can tell it’s going to be a fun 2025 Cup Series season.
The post NASCAR Fans Think Daytona 500 Winner William Byron Intentionally Hit The Wall During His Burnout To Cover Up His Team’s Cheating first appeared on Whiskey Riff.