DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — William Byron has been victimized by superspeedway wrecks plenty of times. His Daytona 500 resume entering Monday (Feb. 19) was defined by examples of how you get the short end of the stick: four Daytona 500 DNFs in six tries. He didn’t even have a lead-lap finish or any result better than 23rd.
Byron knows what happens when a bad bump doesn’t go your way. So it was a weird feeling for his bad bump to clear the way for what would be a record-tying ninth victory for Hendrick Motorsports in the Great American Race.
“I have so many emotions,” Byron explained. “Obviously, I hate what happened on the backstretch. I just got pushed and got sideways.”
That incident brought out a 15-minute red flag with eight laps remaining, wiping out Brad Keselowski and other top Ford contenders while Byron, Alex Bowman and Chase Elliott escaped without any damage.
As the smoke cleared, the trio was left with a perfect setup to gang up on Ross Chastain. On the restart, Byron and Bowman continued to work together, snatching the lead and beginning to pull away heading to the white flag, battling for the lead among themselves.
“[Byron] deserved it there at the end,” Bowman said. “They did all the right things, and I feel like we did too there at the end. Had to go up and block the top lane and that just killed the middle for a bit. We got the middle back rolling and then they all started crashing.”
As the caution light came on, Chastain among those spinning behind them, NASCAR went to instant replay to show Byron’s nose stayed inched ahead of the No. 48. And just like that, a driver in Byron, who entered this race last year with four career wins in his first five seasons now, has seven in just the last year-plus — including a Daytona 500 trophy.
“I’ve always been really raw throughout my career,” Byron said. “I have a lot of undeveloped talent, I guess you could say. I felt like speed was always easy for me. Making lap time by myself was always really easy and came natural, but racing around other cars and managing all those things has been tough.
“But it’s just come over time. I’ve spent half my racing career in the Cup Series, which is crazy, but it’s just the way that my career trajectory kind of went. I think Mr. H [team owner Rick Hendrick] always knew that putting me in the Cup Series would allow me to learn…
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