1. Does William Byron’s Success Raise Pressure Even Higher for Chase Elliott?
Anything that happened in 2020 feels like a long time ago. Truthfully, a lot of things from the state of global affairs then are items that many would love to forget.
But since the end of that year, when Chase Elliott lifted the trophy at Phoenix Raceway as the NASCAR Cup Series champion, it’s fair to say that the dynamic at Hendrick Motorsports has changed.
Being a champion makes you a standard-bearer for a team until you are not.
Since the end of that season, two key things have happened: Kyle Larson won the 2021 title at a blistering pace, and William Byron, the driver of Elliott’s former number, ironically, has hit on something strong. Last year, Byron got the dubious title of winning the most races but coming up short of a title. Monday night (Feb. 19)? Hendrick’s 40th anniversary season kicked off with not Elliott or Larson, but Byron winning the sport’s biggest race.
That only adds fuel to the fact that Byron’s meter in the sport and on the Hendrick campus is rising, and Larson is the most recent champion at the team.
With Elliott coming off a disastrous 2023 season, Byron’s win emphasized one fact: that the No. 9 team and Elliott may be another lacking season away from being an afterthought at Hendrick Motorsports.
2. Fans Shouldn’t Have to Wait So Long for Photo Proof of Results
I do not doubt the fact that by a very, very close margin, Byron was the winner of Monday night’s Daytona 500. In the same respect, it’s easy to understand why seeds of doubt were planted, fertilized and augmented with Miracle-Gro after the checkered flag fell.
Questions persisted.
Who was in front?
When did the caution light display?
Why didn’t the caution display earlier?
For context, consider the following timeline:
At 8:04 p.m. ET, NASCAR’s official post on X, formerly known as Twitter, made it official that Byron was the winner.
It was not until 9:02 p.m. ET on the same social media site that NASCAR posted the photo footage used to confirm the result.
That’s right. It took nearly an hour to publicly confirm how the result was reached.
That was well after the NASCAR on FOX broadcast had concluded, thrusting the door wide open for all sorts of black-helicopter conspiracy theories and other thoughts. Simply put, this is something that should have been done much quicker after the…
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