Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron found himself as one of the biggest talking points during the NASCAR Cup Series race at Atlanta after a heated back-and-forth with his crew chief Rudy Fugle over the radio. He has now come forward to explain his frustration behind the message. 

During a pre-race interview with NASCAR reporter Kelly Crandall in North Wilkesboro this weekend, Byron was questioned about that incident from last weekend.

"I do feel like it gets overblown because I'm usually really quiet on the radio, and he is too," Byron replied. "I feel like it kind of got - I was a little bit surprised that it was like clipped and sent all over the socials because if you watch radioactive, you hear that stuff every week from a lot of teams, but you just don't hear it from us because we're pretty quiet people."

After starting the race in 26th place, Byron managed to slowly gain positions. However, just before the race was red-flagged due to the weather, he came over the radio to express his frustration with his "junk" car. His crew chief, Rudy Fugle, eventually lost his cool and fired back, saying "drive the f****** thing," which captured the gist of a longer rant, clips of which went viral on social media.

Shedding more light on the situation, the HMS driver further told Kelly Crandall:

"But I think sometimes you kind of have to have a pop off. Our season has kind of been a lot of hits and misses. Last week was a miss at that point in the race, and we’re just expressing that, and we're frustrated at the car. He and I are great; we talked right after that happened, and we are in a great spot. It's frustration with just the situation"

William Byron’s frustration comes amid a difficult season for the No. 24 team, which has been struggling to produce consistent results. Since March-end, he hasn't had even one instance of back-to-back Top 10 finishes.

William Byron's crew chief opens up about the heated radio

The No. 24 HMS crew chief and driver duo are rarely heard arguing on the radio, so when things blew off at Atlanta, it caught everyone's eye. However, Fugle cleared the air a few days after the race.

During his appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio earlier this week highlighted that the dire situation got the better of both of them.

"It’s passion coming out, and you know from his end and my end, I’m trying to deal with a frustrating aspect of not getting the car where we want to," said Fugle. "In general, we’re mad at the car. We’re not acting the way we think it should and not each other, and our relationship’s way too strong to let a little bit of back-and-forth banter and even yelling at each other, fighting, whatever it is."

He further expressed that he could have chosen better words and kept his cool as the crew chief. However, he concluded by emphasizing that "him and I are the only things that matter for this relationship, and we’re good, and we always will be good." 

With six races remaining in the regular season, William Byron is 12th in the points. He looks safe to make it through to the playoffs with a 74-point buffer to Erik Jones in 16th, who is on the edge of the Chase bubble.

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Written by

Chionia Libania Colaco

Edited by

Yash Kotak