By John Sturbin, Raceday San Antonio

FORT WORTH – Winner of three of the season’s first eight NASCAR Cup Series races, William Byron has emerged as an April-early favorite for the 2024 championship.

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)

And maybe Hendrick Motorsports’ next Jeff Gordon.

And the driver who, along with crew chief Rudy Fugle, might be mimicking HMS’ famed Jimmie Johnson/Chad Knaus title juggernaut.

It’s 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’ 40^th Anniversary – and first podium sweep by any organization at Martinsville – continued Monday at the home of team-owner Rick Hendrick.

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

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)

“It 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’ve accomplished – it was something that we haven’t done before, so that was cool.”

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.

“I was really glad to see all of us running so well,” said Byron, driver of the No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet Camaro. “Those 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’t see that often in modern day Cup racing…to have three cars in the top-three like that, and four of us in the top eight, so it was just pretty amazing.” HMS teammate Alex Bowman placed eighth.

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’ high-banked/1.5-mile oval. Recall that Byron won last September’s Playoff race here in his ninth career start at “The Great American Speedway.” His TMS record also features two top-five and five-top 10 results and an average finish of 12.1 – fifth among active drivers.

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)

Byron’s recent success has only brightened the spotlight that fell on him when he replaced Gordon, a four-time Cup champion, in HMS’ 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.

“I was put into Jeff’s car and that was a lot of pressure, and we had to kind of make it our own (identity),” Byron said. “I 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’s my own and we kind of built the team that way – with the people and all that we have on our team.

“I get that question a lot, but it’s just about trying to focus on what we can do. Hopefully the fans like that. It seems like we’ve gotten a lot of support lately, so hopefully the old No. 24 fans can kind of adapt and grow with us.”

When it comes to winning in NASCAR’s 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.

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

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)

“Yeah, so I’ve thought a lot about that because I’ve seen some talk about that,” Byron said. “I 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’ve had speed since he’s come on-board and we’ve had that chemistry, and I thought there were a lot of races that we could have won that year in 2021 that we didn’t close the deal all the way through the Playoffs. The Round of Eight, we had like a 3.0 average finish.

“The Next Gen car was just a good reset for us – 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’t 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

“And 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’ve 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.”

For the record (Hendrick Haters) – HMS leads the all-time Cup Series victory list at TMS with 11 among five drivers – “Texas” 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).

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)

Sunday’s 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.

All this championship-buzz business aside, Byron reiterated that his workload has only begun.

“With this (multi-round Playoff) format, I feel like it’s the nature of the beast,” Byron said. “You 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’s great to win races. It’s awesome to lead some of those categories, but we have a lot of work to do.

“The days that we’ve been on, we’ve been really on. And then we’ve had a few solid days, as well. But we just have to execute every week. That’s really what I want to put together is consistent weeks, and we’ve 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.

“It’s just a tough sport. Everyone is really good. You never know what the weekend is going to be like.”

Media Center Interview

William Byron (No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet) –