William Byron, the NASCAR driver, avoided a major wreck before he could form the field for the Cook Out Southern 500 qualifying on Saturday, August 30. The Hendrick Motorsports driver almost ran into Chris Buescher during the qualifying session for the race at Darlington Raceway.Regular season champion William Byron was leaving Turn 2 early, as one of the first on the 16 NASCAR Cup Series Playoff drivers, and was forced to deal with a sudden roadblock. Josh Berry was no problem, but Chris Buescher continued to appear, and by the time Byron came through, he was in the middle of the racing line in front of the No. 24 Chevrolet. Byron suddenly slackened to avoid collision, and Buescher stepped aside the instant he understood what was occurring.However, William Byron escaped the catastrophic beginning of the 2025 NASCAR playoffs at Darlington by finishing 11th fastest in qualifying for the Cook Out Southern 500. With a lap of 29.025 seconds, Byron was able to protect himself in a competitive position on the grid as opposed to deep in the field, a position that may have placed him in early trouble at the notoriously difficult circuit. His 11th-place qualifying meant that he would be able to run in front of traffic jams and give a better opportunity to play his strategy in the playoffs.NASCAR shared the video of Byron's almost-wreck on X, where Byron was heard saying:"Holy sh*t. That was like 800 pounds of brake pressure not to (expletive) wreck everybody back there. Tell Herm to (expletive) wake up."Meanwhile, Denny Hamlin won the pole in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out Southern 500 qualifying at the Darlington Raceway with a quick lap of 28.694 seconds with an average of 171.381 mph. He was then closely followed by his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Chase Briscoe, who was able to capture the outside front row with a lap of 28.715 seconds. Josh Berry and Tyler Reddick rounded out a good qualifying round by playoff contenders by qualifying in the third and fourth places, respectively.William Byron credits controversial Next Gen car for his NASCAR successWilliam Byron credits the controversial Next Gen car for a significant leap in his NASCAR success, noting that the Gen 7 car has effectively given him a fresh start and a better understanding of the race car compared to the previous generation. Byron, who made his full-time Cup debut in the Gen 6 era in 2018, had only two wins in his first four seasons but has accumulated 13 wins in less than four years with the Next Gen car. In his recent conversation with former racer Kevin Harvick on the latter's Happy Hour podcast, William Byron said:"I feel that this Gen 7 car is kind of given me a chance to have a clean slate and really learn about the race car. I feel like I understand this race car way more than I did last the last generation. It's probably just the way my career was kind of driven and how much testing I did with this car.""I was one of the first to test the Next Gen car and then I was one of the first at Hendrick to test it. So I feel like I got a really good idea of where the direction was with setup and it's evolved a lot over the last year, especially on the road courses and short tracks," he described.Byron explained that this clean slate also improved his learning curve compared to other notable drivers who had to relearn the car.