{"id":45496,"date":"2024-04-13T13:26:49","date_gmt":"2024-04-13T18:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=45496"},"modified":"2024-04-13T14:08:47","modified_gmt":"2024-04-13T19:08:47","slug":"rising-star-byron-dominates-nascar-cup-series-with-recent-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/13\/rising-star-byron-dominates-nascar-cup-series-with-recent-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Rising star Byron dominating early NASCAR Cup Series season"},"content":{"rendered":"

By John Sturbin, Raceday San Antonio<\/em><\/p>\n

FORT WORTH \u2013 Winner of three of the season\u2019s first eight NASCAR Cup Series races, William Byron has emerged as an April-early favorite for the 2024 championship.<\/p>\n

\"\"

William Byron, driver of the #24 Axalta Ruby Chevrolet, and crew chief Rudy Fugle celebrate after winning the NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway on April 07, 2024 in Martinsville, Virginia. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

And maybe Hendrick Motorsports\u2019 next Jeff Gordon.<\/p>\n

And the driver who, along with crew chief Rudy Fugle, might be mimicking HMS\u2019 famed Jimmie Johnson\/Chad Knaus title juggernaut.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a lot to unpack for the unassuming 26-year-old native of Charlotte, N.C., less than a week after leading a workmanlike 1-2-3 Hendrick Motorsports sweep at Martinsville Speedway. The post-race party celebrating HMS\u2019 40th<\/sup> Anniversary \u2013 and first podium sweep by any organization at Martinsville \u2013 continued Monday at the home of team-owner Rick Hendrick.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, for me, it felt like a full-circle moment \u2013 with all the history at Martinsville with being in the No. 24, having Jeff there and talking to Rick on the phone,\u201d Byron said Saturday morning during a presser at Texas Motor Speedway previewing Sunday\u2019s AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400. \u201cAnd then going to celebrate with him (Hendrick). We did a little photo op at his house, which it was awesome to see him. It\u2019s been a few weeks. And I think just the history that Hendrick Motorsports has and just seeing all the people there.<\/p>\n

\"\"

William Byron, driver of the #24 Axalta Ruby Chevrolet, celebrates in victory lane after winning the NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway on April 07, 2024 in Martinsville, Virginia. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt was a full-circle moment, I think, and it was really a family atmosphere to have everyone there to celebrate. It was really cool. Got a chance to see him at his house, and seeing him and (wife) Linda and how excited they were. Linda was taking photos on her phone, and she was just so excited. So, it was really neat to share that with them. And like I said, the history of our company and everything that they\u2019ve accomplished \u2013 it was something that we haven\u2019t done before, so that was cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Byron was joined by former Cup champs Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott on the podium, as HMS scored its fourth win of the season in cars painted Ruby Red.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really glad to see all of us running so well,\u201d said Byron, driver of the No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet Camaro. \u201cThose cars were awesome looking, and I felt like the Ruby Red schemes were always like in or around the top-six. And then at the end, we all just kind of had a sea of red at the front. So that was pretty neat. You don\u2019t see that often in modern day Cup racing\u2026to have three cars in the top-three like that, and four of us in the top eight, so it was just pretty amazing.\u201d HMS teammate Alex Bowman placed eighth.<\/p>\n

Byron now leads the series in Playoff points with 15. He also has collected one pole, three top-five and five top-10 results this spring. On cue, Byron has returned to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex as most recent winner on TMS\u2019 high-banked\/1.5-mile oval. Recall that Byron won last September\u2019s Playoff race here in his ninth career start at \u201cThe Great American Speedway.\u201d His TMS record also features two top-five and five-top 10 results and an average finish of 12.1 \u2013 fifth among active drivers.<\/p>\n

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William Byron, driver of the #24 RaptorTough.com Chevrolet, places the winner sticker on his car after winning the NASCAR Cup Series EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas on March 24, 2024 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Sean Gardner\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Byron\u2019s recent success has only brightened the spotlight that fell on him when he replaced Gordon, a four-time Cup champion, in HMS\u2019 No. 24 Chevy after the 2015 season. Byron dutifully has been working to establish his brand, aided by sage advice from Sir Jeff in his role as Vice Chairman of Hendrick Motorsports.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was put into Jeff\u2019s car and that was a lot of pressure, and we had to kind of make it our own (identity),\u201d Byron said. \u201cI feel like Jeff is a great mentor and a great asset for our team, and we use him a lot in different ways and talking off the track. But he made it known when I got in the car that it\u2019s my own and we kind of built the team that way \u2013 with the people and all that we have on our team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get that question a lot, but it\u2019s just about trying to focus on what we can do. Hopefully the fans like that. It seems like we\u2019ve gotten a lot of support lately, so hopefully the old No. 24 fans can kind of adapt and grow with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to winning in NASCAR\u2019s Next Gen car, nobody has done it better than Byron and Larson. Byron leads the series with 10 Next Gen victories, while Larson has eight in the most recent iteration of the car in NASCAR’s premier series, which debuted in 2022.<\/p>\n

Enter the comparisons between Byron and Fugle and Johnson and Knaus, who collaborated for a record-tying seven Cup championships between 2006 and 2016 \u2013 including an incredible five in a row from 2006 to 2010.<\/p>\n

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William Byron, driver of the #24 RaptorTough.com Chevrolet, celebrates in victory lane after winning the NASCAR Cup Series EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas on March 24, 2024 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Sean Gardner\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cYeah, so I\u2019ve thought a lot about that because I\u2019ve seen some talk about that,\u201d Byron said. \u201cI do think the Next Gen car has been a good reset for us. But when Rudy came in 2021, we won the third race of the year on a 1.5-mile track and then we had like 13 or 14 straight top-10s. We\u2019ve had speed since he\u2019s come on-board and we\u2019ve had that chemistry, and I thought there were a lot of races that we could have won that year in 2021 that we didn\u2019t close the deal all the way through the Playoffs. The Round of Eight, we had like a 3.0 average finish.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Next Gen car was just a good reset for us \u2013 to go in and have a clean slate, and we really attacked it head-on. There was a little bit of discomfort early-on when we were testing the car because we just weren\u2019t sure how it was going to go. But we just kind of used that, took that challenge, and we had speed at the first few tests that we had at Charlotte. And then the short-track test at Phoenix, as well, we had pretty good speed, and then we just hit the ground running when we started with that car<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then I think you just work with what you have. The Next Gen car has continued to evolve. The competition is closer than ever, so I feel like attention to detail has been really where we could put our focus. Just feel like we\u2019ve adapted to it, but like I said, when he (Fugle) came on-board and we started to click, we had a lot of success and we just had to use this car as kind of a platform to keep that going.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the record (Hendrick Haters) \u2013 HMS leads the all-time Cup Series victory list at TMS with 11 among five drivers \u2013 \u201cTexas\u201d Terry Labonte (Spring 1999), Gordon (Spring 2009), Johnson (Playoffs 2007, Playoffs 2012, Playoffs 2013, Playoffs 2014, Spring 2015, Playoffs 2015, Spring 2017), Larson (2021) and Byron (2023).<\/p>\n

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William Byron, driver of the #24 Z HP Chevrolet, looks on during practice for the NASCAR Cup Series Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on March 02, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Chris Graythen\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Sunday\u2019s AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 will be televised on FOX Sports 1 at 2:30 p.m. (CDT) with radio coverage available on PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Byron will start sixth in the 38-car field after hot-lapping at 28.464-seconds and 189.713 mph during a session topped by Larson, who earned P1 with a run of 28.366-seconds and 190.369 mph in his No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevy.<\/p>\n

All this championship-buzz business aside, Byron reiterated that his workload has only begun.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this (multi-round Playoff) format, I feel like it\u2019s the nature of the beast,\u201d Byron said. \u201cYou have to keep accumulating the Playoff points and try to get to the end of the season with your best performances. I mean for us, it\u2019s great to win races. It\u2019s awesome to lead some of those categories, but we have a lot of work to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe days that we\u2019ve been on, we\u2019ve been really on. And then we\u2019ve had a few solid days, as well. But we just have to execute every week. That\u2019s really what I want to put together is consistent weeks, and we\u2019ve started to do that the last three. We just want those bad days to be ninth or 10th and those good days to still have the wins.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a tough sport. Everyone is really good. You never know what the weekend is going to be like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Media Center Interview<\/h3>\n

William Byron (No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet) – <\/p>\n

Winner of three of the season\u2019s first eight NASCAR Cup Series races, William Byron has emerged as an April-early favorite for the 2024 championship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":678,"featured_media":45260,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,13],"tags":[919,16,21,212],"class_list":["post-45496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","category-texas-motor-speedway","tag-autotrader-echopark-automotive-400","tag-nascar","tag-texas-motor-speedway","tag-william-byron"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/GettyImages-2146945254-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1775","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-bPO","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/678"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45496"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45508,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45496\/revisions\/45508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}