{"id":23327,"date":"2019-02-13T17:09:07","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T23:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=23327"},"modified":"2019-02-15T18:25:17","modified_gmt":"2019-02-16T00:25:17","slug":"william-byrons-new-pairing-with-chad-knaus-has-come-full-circle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/13\/william-byrons-new-pairing-with-chad-knaus-has-come-full-circle\/","title":{"rendered":"William Byron\u2019s new pairing with Chad Knaus has come full circle"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 The 40th<\/sup> anniversary of the race that put NASCAR<\/a> on the map is all but lost on William Byron.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"

NASCAR driver William Byron speaks with the media during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series 61st Annual Daytona 500 Media Day at Daytona International Speedway on February 13, 2019 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

When Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison wrecked in the closing laps of the 1979 Daytona 500\u2014and tried to settle their differences with fisticuffs afterward\u2014Byron wasn\u2019t around.<\/p>\n

In fact, when Jimmie Johnson won his first career pole at Daytona in 2002, Byron was more than nine months away from his fifth birthday. As he grew older, he paid attention to Johnson\u2019s success with crew chief Chad Knaus.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, I’m so young, I wasn’t around for a lot of that,\u201d Byron said of the 1979 race. \u201cI guess, like, growing up watching, honestly, Jimmie and Chad win races at the 500, then watching Kevin Harvick win in 2007\u2014those are the races that stick in my mind. <\/p>\n

\u201cI’m trying to make memories for myself. It’s cool to see some of that stuff come around full circle.\u201d <\/p>\n

Team owner Rick Hendrick closed the circle with a personnel shuffle that broke up the Johnson\/Knaus pairing after 17 years and brought the seven-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion crew chief to Byron\u2019s No. 24 Chevrolet.<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/D500_MediaDay_Byron_021319.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

That\u2019s something Byron couldn\u2019t have imagined when, as a driver for the Hendrick Motorsports-affiliated JR Motorsports NASCAR Xfinity Series team, he met Knaus for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, definitely not, definitely not,\u201d Byron said on Wednesday during Daytona 500 media day at Daytona International Speedway. \u201cThat\u2019s a crazy thought to think a couple of years ago, that I could have him as a crew chief.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut a huge honor, and something that I\u2019m looking forward to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Byron already has something he can look back on, too. On Sunday, with Knaus on his pit box, the 21-year-old driver won his first career Busch Pole, securing the top starting spot for Sunday\u2019s season-opening Daytona 500 (2:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Hendrick Motorsports drivers had the four fastest laps in the final round, with Alex Bowman, Johnson and Chase Elliott trailing Byron.<\/p>\n

Johnson and Knaus won the Daytona 500 pole in their first race together. Byron and Knaus did the same, a testament to how quickly the young driver and veteran crew chief have adapted to each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s exciting to work with,\u201d Byron said. \u201cHe’s super into anything racing-related, whether it\u2019s car-related or driver-related. He’s helped me a lot with a lot of things I didn’t really expect him to really care about that much. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe cares about me as a person. That builds a level of trust and respect between us. Still a lot\u2026 still very fresh and very new of a relationship. We’ve worked a lot in the offseason to make sure it’s the way it should be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Byron can look back on his first pole, but he\u2019d prefer not to look much further, opting to put a rocky 2018 rookie season in the Cup series behind him. With an average finish of 22.1 and four top 10s in 36 points races, Byron finished the year 23rd<\/sup> in the standings.<\/p>\n

With a new crew chief and a new competition package this season, he can discard much of last year without regret.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, I don’t think about it that much right now,\u201d Byron said. \u201cI kind of blocked out most of that last year, other than the things I learned about myself mentally. But honestly, there’s not really a lot that’s similar to last year with us, besides the (car) number and the way the car looks.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t really think about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

With three days between his qualifying laps and his Gander RV Duel At Daytona 150-mile qualifying race on Thursday, Byron is eager to start racing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m ready to get in a car,\u201d Byron said. \u201cI’m tired of talking about it. I just want to go race. Can’t wait to get into the car.\u201d<\/p>\n

The nature of superspeedway racing tends to minimize the advantage a pole winner might have. It\u2019s not particularly surprising that no Daytona polesitter has won the 500 since Dale Jarrett took the checkered flag 19 years ago. Byron hopes to break that trend.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be awesome,\u201d Byron allowed. \u201cHopefully, if it’s in the plan, I guess meant to be, it will be. We’ll see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 The 40th anniversary of the race that put NASCAR on the map is all but lost on William Byron. When Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison wrecked in the closing laps of the 1979 Daytona 500\u2014and tried to settle their differences with fisticuffs afterward\u2014Byron wasn\u2019t around. In fact, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":23328,"comment_status":"open","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-23327","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\/2019\/02\/Byron_MediaDay_021319.jpg?fit=7360%2C4912&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-64f","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23327","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\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23330,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23327\/revisions\/23330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}