{"id":14646,"date":"2018-02-15T21:52:24","date_gmt":"2018-02-16T03:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=14646"},"modified":"2018-02-15T22:14:41","modified_gmt":"2018-02-16T04:14:41","slug":"william-byron-suddenly-a-familiar-face-as-he-readies-for-daytona-500-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/02\/15\/william-byron-suddenly-a-familiar-face-as-he-readies-for-daytona-500-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"William Byron suddenly a familiar face as he readies for Daytona 500 debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 William Byron\u2019s<\/strong> face brightened and he laughed a bit talking about his new high-definition reality as a member of the championship Hendrick Motorsports team in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"

William Byron, driver of the #24 AXALTA Chevrolet, practices for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 10, 2018 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

The 20-year old rookie got his first taste of stardom earlier this week and said he was a little taken aback when he unexpectedly got \u201crecognized\u201d having dinner at an Outback Steakhouse near Daytona International Speedway.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat part has been different,\u2019\u2019 Byron said smiling. \u201cI went out to eat last night and I got stopped by four or five people in the restaurant, and that was so different knowing that people were knowing what we were doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a cool feeling and makes you realize that there are people knowing what we\u2019re doing. It was cool to have that fan interaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s something Byron really should get used to. The driver of the famed No. 24 AXALTA Chevrolet is following in the footsteps of retired driver Jeff Gordon who earned four championships in Hendrick\u2019s No. 24 and more recently, the 2016 Rookie of the Year Chase Elliott who switched to the No. 9 for this season.<\/p>\n

Byron comes into his big opportunity well versed in success. He won seven races and had 16 top 10s in 23 races as an 18-year old rookie in the Camping World Truck Series. Last year he won four races and had 22 top-10 finishes in 33 starts en route to the Xfinity Series championship.<\/p>\n

The spotlight is bright, the expectations substantial. And he handled his first Daytona 500 Media Day well, offering well-thought out answers to the large contingent of reporters \u2013 also showing both a good sense of humor and perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fan support and the drivers who came before us at Hendrick Motorsports is something that we can build on,” said Byron, during the day-long media event in advance of Sunday’s Daytona 500 (2:30 p.m. ET on FOX). \u201cIt\u2019s a golden opportunity to go out and show what we can do. We have great race cars and great fan support. We\u2019re already way ahead of what most rookies have to go through, and I feel like that\u2019s an advantage for me and the fans will be eager to see what we can do on the race track in the 24 car.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bond that I have with my crew chief [Darian Grubb] will be the strongest thing that I can lean on, and as we continue to progress through the 500 and through the season we\u2019re hopefully going to do just like we did at the Vegas test and use those first couple of races to feel the temperature, and then click off on all cylinders.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far in Daytona Beach, Byron seems to be adjusting to the career move. He led the second round of Monster Energy Series practice last weekend and then qualified fourth \u2013 missing the front row by only sixth-tenths of a second.<\/p>\n

It certainly left him enthusiastic about his chances in his first Daytona 500 start. He was already optimistic about his chances this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to go out there and show what we can do as a team, but I think that comes more from my competitive instinct and drive that I have to win,” Byron said. \u201cIf I didn\u2019t start reaching my goals my first year I would be a little frustrated and I would work to be better.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will come from within and from our team. I think if you can start to build on top 10s; a lot of people say top 10s lead to top fives to wins. With our team, that\u2019s true. If I can build on some top 10s and develop that into some better results we can lead some races.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy goal is to go out there and be myself and hopefully gather some fans based on our results and what we can do on the racetrack. Hopefully, those fans can be excited about how we\u2019re approaching each weekend. I\u2019m just looking forward to being in that race car.\u201d<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/DIS_MediaDay_Byron_021418.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 William Byron\u2019s face brightened and he laughed a bit talking about his new high-definition reality as a member of the championship Hendrick Motorsports team in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. The 20-year old rookie got his first taste of stardom earlier this week and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14647,"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],"tags":[42,287,16,212],"class_list":["post-14646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-daytona-500","tag-daytona-international-speedway","tag-nascar","tag-william-byron"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Byron-2018MENCS-CarShot.jpg?fit=4095%2C2726&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-3Oe","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14646"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14656,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14646\/revisions\/14656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}