NASCAR
DARLINGTON, S.C. – The most consistent driver and team of 2023 finds victory lane again. After a few late field-clearing crashes, William Byron inherited the lead and held on in overtime to win at Darlington. A third win for team 24 is a statement that this championship will come through Hendrick Motorsports. Byron was punted out of the way in this race 12 months ago, and now celebrates as the Darlington winner.
The Goodyear 400 can truly be divided into two very different halves. The first Stage was led by polesitter Martin Truex Jr. from lap two onward. Stage 2 saw the 19 going for a sweep, but ultimately spinning himself off of Ross Chastain’s bumper. This ended up as the 1’s fifth Stage win of 2023.
Following Stage 2, the race off pit road went in favor of prerace favorite Kyle Larson. The 5 crew allowed him to take command for the first time to start Stage 3.
The start of the final Stage went green for about half a lap, as the 43 of Erik Jones lost a tire and collected many others out of turn two.
Trouble behind the leaders! @Erik_Jones and @Daniel_SuarezG are among those involved! pic.twitter.com/v0tkD97Ubr
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) May 14, 2023
Larson fell back on the ensuing restart, giving the lead back to Chastain. Larson and Christopher Bell would both leapfrog the 1 on track through a late green flag pit stop sequence. The 5 was well in command as laps wound down, only for everything to be undone by a Ryan Newman spin inside of 20 laps to go.
On the restart with 13 laps left, Martin Truex Jr. was turned across the field from third-place, taking out many strong cars. This put many new faces up front for crunch time.
Chastain’s aggression remained constant on the next restart. The 1 cleared himself a second too early over Larson, sending both cars into the outside wall and out of contention. Now going into overtime, the lead was in the hands of William Byron.
By turn two, the 24 was clear of all competitors and set sail for Darlington victory lane. Not only is Hendrick Motorsports knocking on the door of 300 wins, but this also marks 100 victories for the No. 24.
“Yeah, it’s pretty amazing,” Byron said. “My granddad passed away on Thursday, and just, man, I wish my family could be here. Just things have a way of working out, honestly. It just worked out that way today. We didn’t have the best third stage. We just kept battling, and things just kind of come back around.
“Definitely didn’t expect this. But just thankful for a great team, and, yeah, just things have a way of working out, and to come back here to Darlington and have it go exactly the other way.”
Behind Byron, the top-10 finishers were: Kevin Harvick, Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski, Bubba Wallace, Harrison Burton, Kyle Busch, Justin Haley, Ryan Blaney, and Chris Buescher. Hear from some of these top finishers below.
“Feel like I didn’t do a really good job at all, we just got lucky,” @chaseelliott says finishing 3rd with damage on the 9. #Goodyear400 #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/OFecBA9uPP
— Peter Stratta (@peterstratta) May 14, 2023
The 2023 regular season is now halfway complete for the NASCAR Cup Series. With this milestone now hit, the next on-track action is the 2023 All-Star Race from North Wilkesboro Speedway. The $1 million race will go green Sunday at 8:00 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90. This week is the most anticipated race of the season, who can cap off a historic racetrack return with a big check?
Written by Peter Stratta
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Photo Credit to Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images for NASCAR
