SPEEDWAY, Ind. — If you weren’t a fan of JR Motorsports rookie sensation William Byron before Saturday afternoon’s Lilly Diabetes 250 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, quite possibly you are now.
The Hendrick Motorsports driver went toe-to-toe with some of the elite Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series stars during the 100-lap race mixing it up with former series champion Kyle Busch, former Daytona 500 winner Joey Logano and even held off former Brickyard 400 winner Paul Menard to earn his third victory of 2017 and 10th of his NASCAR career.
Byron’s commitment to race hard, race clean and take fast cars to the front is paying off – maybe even quicker than anyone thought.
42 starts into his NASCAR national series career, Byron has won 10 times, posted 18 top-five and 28 top-10 finishes. Those stats are hard to beat.
Always humble for his time spent in Victory Lane, Byron didn’t point to himself as the key ingredient for the success, instead, he pointed to the people he works with including JR Motorsports crew chief Dave Elenz who Byron admits the chemistry is gelling after struggling earlier this season.
“Great people,” said Byron of his early success in NASCAR. “I think you gotta have good people around you. Rudy Fugle is a pretty awesome guy. He taught me a lot last year and we had a really good combination. Kinda took what we learned and was able to apply it this year.
“Dave (Elenz) is excellent. Dave’s a great engineer, a great crew chief, makes excellent pit strategy calls. I feel like we are starting to get the confidence up between the two of us and that’s starting to lead to a lot of success.
“It took a couple weeks for us to really gel, but I think with his experience and my background it’s starting to come together. I just attribute to those two guys working well together and
just what I’ve done in the past and being able to learn.”
His future is secure within the Hendrick Motorsports pipeline, but just how soon he’s given the opportunity to master his craft in the Cup Series is anybody’s guess.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
