It’s been two years, but Hendrick Motorsports finally will have all four cars in contention for the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series championship.
Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman finally ended their winless streaks that each dated back to 2022, with the latter only snapping his streak at the most recent race at the Chicago street course.
Kyle Larson has also solidified his spot not just in the playoffs, but also atop the standings, despite a scare that he may not receive a waiver for skipping the Coca-Cola 600 in favor of competing in the Indianapolis 500. Larson has three wins on the year, tied with three other drivers for most on the season thus far.
One of those drivers Larson is tied with is his other teammate, William Byron. Byron earned three wins early in the year, including the Daytona 500. Much like last season, the No. 24 jumped out of the gate and took control of the season early, only finishing outside the top 20 once in the first 10 races, at Bristol Motor Speedway.
But ever since Dover Motor Speedway in April, it’s been a forgettable stretch of races for the Charlotte, N.C., native.
Not only has Byron failed to reach victory lane in the last 10 races, he hasn’t come nearly as close as he did at the beginning of the year. He only has two top fives and four top 10s in the last 10 races, compared to four top fives and seven top 10s in the first 10 races.
Byron suffered his first DNF of the season at Dover after getting caught up in a crash with Bubba Wallace and Christopher Bell.
It’s all been downhill from there. An uncharacteristically bad weekend for the entire No. 24 team at Kansas Speedway resulted in a mediocre 23rd-place finish. He rebounded with solid finishes of sixth at Darlington Raceway and third at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Charlotte in particular is one that likely got away from Byron. He ran in the top five nearly the whole evening and won the first stage. However, a red flag on lap 249 for rain never lifted, and Byron was forced to settle for third as Bell went to victory lane. Still a solid points night, but one that Byron likely wishes went green to the finish.
A quiet 15th-place at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway backed up his two straight top 10s, but Sonoma Raceway resulted in another finish outside the top 30. Contact between Josh Berry and Erik Jones sent the former screaming into a pack of cars in the hairpin, and Byron was among the victims caught up.
That crash put…
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