William Byron's crew chief advocates for greater team control over wet-weather tires in NASCAR

William Byron’s crew chief at #24 Hendrick Motorsports, Rudy Fugle, shared his thoughts and discussed NASCAR’s protocol on using wet-weather tires in the recently concluded rain-delayed USA Today 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Fugle is demanding some changes to NASCAR’s procedure going forward regarding the use of wet-weather tires.

On Sunday, drivers utilized wet-weather tires on the final 80 laps on the damp track to finish the race. William Byron finished P26 in that event, while Christopher Bell won the race.

During an appearance on SiriusXM Radio on Monday, William Byron's crew chief called for NASCAR to grant each individual team more freedom in making their own decisions regarding tire choices and pit strategies, especially in challenging conditions like wet weather.

Describing how he would like to see officials handle future situations, Fugle said:

“I do think you’re going to have the sanctioning body call it, ‘This is an official wet race. We aren’t going back.’ There’s a couple of things that you’re going to have to decide on because you’ll get yourselves into situations where we won’t know... There are a couple of situation where I think that they need to dictate what’s going on,”

“I fully think that we should be able to, ‘Hey, you spun out,’ you should be able to go get some new tires. ‘Hey, you hurt your tires — your rain tires, trying to come through the field,’ you should be able to come get another set and see if you can make some progress.”

---

William Byron's crew chief on choosing between dry and wet tires

The #24 HMS team crew chief believes that if the choice was given to teams, half of the teams would have opted for dry tires, which would have led to an interesting and unpredictable outcome. He also feels that drivers and teams must have more flexibility and autonomy if racing in wet conditions returns in the future.

Expressing his opinion on necessary regulations on running in wet conditions, Byron’s crew chief said:

“I bet half the people would’ve put dry (tires) on, and we could’ve seen what would’ve happened. So I definitely think there’s a lot more openness, where the teams and the drivers can be in control, for probably 80% of the decisions that need to be made.”

William Byron currently sits seventh on the NASCAR Cup Series points table with 548 points and three wins.

Watch Byron and the #24 HMS Chevrolet team in action at Nashville Superspeedway for the Ally 400 on Sunday, June 30.