NASCAR
William Byron Ends Summer Struggles with Iowa Victory
NEWTON, Iowa – Perhaps the poster child of bad luck throughout the spring and summer found victory lane again. Stretching a final fuel tank almost 150 laps, far past its lifespan, William Byron takes home the Iowa Speedway trophy. The Hendrick No. 24 Chevrolet bookended this race, being strong both at the start and in the final run to the finish. Historically known for limping into the postseason, is Playoff momentum now building for this title contender?
Brad Keselowski was both clutch and calculating in Stage 1. The No. 6 Ford stalked William Byron’s No. 24 Chevrolet for over 40 laps before making a late pass for the stage win. The 6 remained perfect as well after a few late restarts to end Stage 2. This marked Keselowski’s first stage-sweeping day since Martinsville in 2019.
While Iowa’s first 170 laps were only halted by caution once, the opposite happened in the second half. 11 yellow flags slowed the field over a span of about 100 laps. This constant shuffling of positions saw several different faces out front. Almost all of these new leaders were forced to pit for fuel, however, except for William Byron.
Team 24 opting to short-pit Stage 2 on lap 206 turned out to be their final time in for service. Despite a fuel window of only 110 laps, Byron was able to save his dwindling gas supply more than 30 circuits beyond this distance. Cautions certainly helped out Byron’s intense fuel saving strategy. The closing laps did also see Byron have to hold off a hard charging Chase Briscoe and Brad Keselowski. After a few recent fuel mileage blunders, Byron got the upper hand in Iowa.
“Man, how about that for some fuel mileage?” Byron said. “We’ve had our fair share of things not go our way with fuel mileage, and just super thankful for Rudy [Fugle, crew chief], all these guys, all the engineers, [everyone] back at the shop. Just this whole race team, we’ve been through a lot this year. It’s been a lot of growing pains. It’s been tough on us. But it feels really good today to get a win.”
“Honestly felt like we had a good car and just kind of raced it and just tried to be there at the end, and we were, and luckily the fuel was enough there at the end. I think I ran out right there. That’s why I stopped. Just thanks to Raptor, thanks to Chevrolet, Mr. Hendrick, everybody, Relay, Liberty, everybody.”
“I think our confidence in each other never wavered. I feel like our speed has been better than it’s ever been. That’s a big reason why we stay confident. I feel like every week we work really hard together and show up prepared, show up fast, and yeah, we needed just one to go our way, and today it did. Honestly, they haven’t, but today it did.”
Polesitter Chase Briscoe and the first half’s dominant driver Brad Keselowski both settled for podium finishes. They just edged out defending Iowa winner Ryan Blaney and Ryan Preece. The rest of the top-10 were: Bubba Wallace, Alex Bowman, Carson Hocevar, Joey Logano, and Austin Dillon.
The Playoff standings did not change much with Byron’s second win of the season. The bubble battle still has three drivers above the cut line with three regular season races left.
Watkins Glen is the next stop for the NASCAR Cup Series. The historic New York circuit is a fan-favorite stop every season, and will try to live up to last year’s dramatic finish. The Go Bowling at The Glen goes green Sunday at 2 p.m. ET on USA, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90. Can anyone stop Shane van Gisbergen from an unprecedented fourth-straight road course win?
Written by Peter Stratta
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Photo Credits to Sean Gardner/Getty Images
