Rudy Fugle, the crew chief for William Byron and the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team, has provided some context after a clip went viral featuring a heated back and forth at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
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As Fugle said during an appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, what sounded like an argument was just passion coming out over the radio.
"Just passion from his end and my end on trying to deal with a frustrating aspect of not getting the car where we want to," Fugle told Mike Bagley and Carla Metts. "So in general, we're mad at the car, for not acting the way we think it should, and not each other.
"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, all that stuff is healthy. If you just hold it all in and don't get any of it out, that's not good."
Fugle added that he wished he had chosen some better words so that he didn't have to address this situation during an appearance on the radio. He reiterated that there is nothing wrong with his relationship with Byron.
TNT Sports played this during the broadcast, and it's pretty rare to hear this level of frustration from William Byron and Rudy Fugle pic.twitter.com/CzrSlxJXqT
— Kelly Crandall (@KellyCrandall) July 13, 2026
"This is junk, absolute (expletive) junk," an exasperated Byron said over the radio while running 19th on Sunday. His spotter responded by saying, "Copy that. Yeah. Just do what you can. Lightning is close. Not quite halfway."
Byron went further. He keyed up the radio once again and said, "Plowing my (expletive) off. This terrible."
At that point, Fugle cut in with a sharp tone. He said, "I (expletive) heard you, ok? I heard you. Ok? I got it. You're five numbers loose, I put a round in the left rear. We're too tight right now. It's to fight offset.
"We can park it, or we can keep trying until I get to work on it again. Just drive the (expletive) thing!"
The team continued to work on the No. 24 Chevrolet, and they made a little progress. Byron missed out on stage points after struggling with handling, but he worked his way to 16th place.
He also avoided the crash at the end that collected Chase Briscoe, Riley Herbst, Alex Bowman, Kyle Larson, Austin Hill, and Denny Hamlin.
Still, this heated back and forth continued what has been a frustrating season for the No. 24 team. This group has not performed up to its own expectations while adapting to a new Chevrolet body.
Byron has won at least two seasons in the first half of each season of the Gen 7 era (2022-present). He led the Cup Series with six wins in 2023 before finishing third in the championship standings.
That is not the case this season. Byron has yet to reach victory lane. He only has nine top-10 finishes and four top-fives in the first 20 races. His best finishes were third at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Pocono Raceway.
"I think we've just kind of been really up and down, and we're just trying to find the balance and just be able to have some sort of rhythm," Byron said at Chicagoland Speedway before delivering a fourth-place finish.
"You know, in the past, we just had a lot of notes and we could just kind of lean on that. And this year, it has just been kind of relearning everything. It's been a lot of hits and misses, so hopefully we can just have a good weekend here and kind of get back on track."
