Byron’s Dover race went “really bad” after blistering start

Byron wasted little time in showing the speed in his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in Monday’s NASCAR Cup race.

Despite starting 24th due to Saturday’s qualifying being canceled, Byron powered to the lead by Lap 27 of 400. He went on to win the first stage and finished a close second in Stage 2 behind Ross Chastain.

Byron, 25, still led the way early in the final stage, but Chastain was eventually able to run him down to reclaim the lead on Lap 286.

Despite leading 193 laps at that point, Byron would not lead again and rallied on a final restart with seven laps to go to finish fourth.

Asked about the disparity in being able to run up front in different parts of the race, Byron said, “The middle section – I don’t know, I need to maybe do a little better job on the feedback, and then just us communicating the adjustments there.

“We took off, had clean air and the car was just too loose. I couldn’t load the rear tires and we were just hanging on. That (last) run was obviously really bad – we fell from first to seventh. We just had to work our way up from there.”

When Joey Logano’s wreck brought out a late-race caution, Byron was among the 10 cars still on the lead lap. All of the lead-lap cars elected to pit and all took on two new tires except Chastain, who took four.

Chastain was able to close to second behind race winner Martin Truex Jr. at the finish while Byron was able to work his way back in the top-five.

“In our history, this hasn’t been our best track,” Byron said. “We came with something a little bit different to try and help that. I think it did for the majority of the race, but just got too loose.”

Byron’s fourth-place finish tied his career-best at the 1-mile concrete oval in nine starts. He previously had never led more than 23 laps in any Dover race.

“Proud of the effort. Getting a top-five is great,” he said. “Definitely needed some more, but we’re having speed at all different kinds of tracks.”

So far this season, Byron has two wins, four top-five and five top-10 finishes in 11 races and remains 11th in the series standings.