Before Sunday, William Byron had never won on a road course.
Before Sunday, William Byron had never won five races or led 876 laps in the first 25 races of a season—let alone an entire year.
And before Sunday, William Byron appeared to be out of the horserace between Joe Gibbs Racing veterans Martin Truex Jr. and Denny Hamlin as favorites entering the NASCAR Cup Playoffs.
With his victory at Watkins Glen, Byron thrust the No. 24 team right back into the title conversation if not the greatest threat from Hendrick Motorsports at this moment.
“He’s capable of winning everywhere,” said Hendrick vice chairman and four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon. “I know for us as we look at drivers and evaluate drivers, that’s what you’re looking for is somebody that’s diverse, somebody that’s aggressive but also knows how to save the equipment when they need to, somebody that can stay calm in stressful situations.
“You want them well-rounded as far as the tracks that they compete on, but you want them well-rounded as a person, too. You see William’s demeanor, he’s pretty calm and cool off the track, but he’s aggressive on the track. That’s everything you can ask for out of a driver.”
While Kyle Larson is clearly the most naturally talented racer at HMS—if not all in of NASCAR—the No. 5 team hasn’t won since Martinsville on April 16. Both Alex Bowman and Chase Elliott were sidelined earlier in the season due to injury, and neither team appears to be firing on all eight cylinders.
In his sixth season on the Cup tour, Byron, 25, leads the series in victories and Playoff points. But like Hendrick as a whole, the No. 24 team has stumbled along the way.
Between Byron’s victory at Atlanta on July 9, when he took the points lead, and Sunday’s win at the Glen, his average finish in those five races was 21.6. In its heyday, the No. 48 team featuring soon-to-be NASCAR Hall-of-Famers Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus were notorious for enduring summer slumps as they prepared for the postseason.
But this slump wasn’t the 24 team’s only rough patch. Following back-to-back victories at Las Vegas and Phoenix in March, Byron cashed in an E-ticket ride of inconsistency over the next five races—a wreck at Atlanta, fifth from the pole at COTA, 24th at Richmond, 13th on Bristol dirt and 23rd at Martinsville.
Byron followed that run with six consecutive top 10s, including a win at Darlington—the site of the first race of the Playoffs.
“They definitely needed a pick-me-up,” Gordon added. “When you’re leading the points, and you fall out of the lead of the regular season points (lead) and you know that you’re capable of winning more races and you don’t capitalize on that, then that gets frustrating.
“It’s wild the way the season works today. It just seems like there are more ebbs and flows and kind of waves that you go in and out of moreso than in the past, and maybe it’s just because of how tight the competition is.
“But I do think that getting on a hot streak at the right time can make all that go away, and certainly this is one step towards that. But if they can do that in the first round of the Playoffs, I think that would really be huge… it’s all just looking forward now.”
Crew chief Rudy Fugle, who has been guiding Byron’s efforts for the last three seasons, has won two truck titles but has never advanced to the Championship 4 round in Cup. But Fugle smiles when considering the No. 24 team’s chances in the Playoffs.
“I love the whole 10 races,” Fugle said of the postseason venues. “They’re tracks that are good for us, tracks that we ran well at the beginning of the year, and tracks that we’ve just been strong on.
“Honestly, having a dip in the summer has made us work a lot harder from all aspects, so I think we’re going to have faster cars when the Playoffs start. We’ll have more pace. Hopefully, we can execute and do the right things. That’s what the Playoffs is about.
“With everything as tight as it has been in the Next Gen, it’s about execution. You can’t shoot yourself in the foot, you can’t speed, you can’t go to the back, you can’t spin out and wreck. Those mistakes are harder to overcome, so our focus is execution.”
Byron understands that execution is necessary throughout the Playoff rounds—especially if he’s going to keep pace with Truex, Hamlin and Larson all the way to Phoenix. He’s not afraid to put in the effort, but everything must fall Byron’s way.
“You want to be on kill for 38 (races), but it’s really hard to just be good every single week,” Byron said. “Came this weekend with a good mind-set, focusing on trying to get ready for the postseason. We’ve had fast cars. We just haven’t executed races, but today was flawless.”
Near-perfection will be the difference down the stretch for the No. 24 Hendrick team versus the competition–if only Byron and his crew can achieve it.
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at: [email protected].
