William Byron hopes to avenge last year’s heartbreaking result with a win in the Goodyear 400. (Photo: Kevin Ritchie | The Podium Finish)
DARLINGTON, S.C. – William Byron may feel like Phil Connors in Groundhog Day as he enters Sunday’s Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway with two wins much like his strong start last year.
A year ago, Byron was on the precipice of adding his name to Darlington’s list of prestigious winners. However, as Byron led the race in the penultimate lap, Joey Logano, who ran second, applied the bump and run in Turn 3, causing the former to lose control of his No. 24 car.
As Logano drove on to his first of four wins of the 2022 season, Byron was relegated to a 13th place finish, lamenting over what could have been as he stewed over his defeat on pit road.
Despite the heartbreaking finish, Byron still has fond feelings for the 1.366-mile speedway, particularly with its challenging elements.
“Darlington is one of the tracks I really like racing at,” Byron said in a team press release. “You have to manage tires throughout a run because the surface is so old and really uses tires up.
“We had a hot slick surface last weekend to race on and had a couple tires ‘slip’ because of it. This weekend will be similar in that situation but you really have to manage them throughout the entire run as well.”
Starting from the fourth position, Byron seems to have the makings for a bonafide Darlington contender. Namely, Byron, despite his young age, is proficient with tire management.
Byron may have fans thinking about Oasis, Goo Goo Dolls and Britney Spears with his throwback to 1998. (Photo: Trish McCormack | The Podium Finish)
Additionally, he has one of the top crew chiefs, Rudy Fugle, in the NASCAR Cup Series and an innovative individual with setups. So far, it seems that the No. 24 Axalta NASCAR 75th Anniversary Chevrolet team has everything in good order heading into the 293-lap race.
“You have two completely different ends to Darlington,” Fugle said in a team press release. (Turns) one and two you will run a lot of throttle and you’ll be pretty close to the wall. Going into (Turn) 3, you’re going to have to stomp on the brakes, and you can get fairly low or you can rip the wall, but just know you’ll get loose at that end of the track if you do.
“It makes for a heck of a race. It’s one of those races that you don’t get the full experience unless you watch it in person. If you could get down there and sit in turn four to see how sideways the cars are, you’ll see how crazy it is to drive those things.”
Byron, who placed fourth in Friday night’s Truck race, noted how it is about patience and poise in the early moments of a green flag run before hitting the hammer when it really matters.
“You can’t go too hard early on because you’ll fall off too much in the end,” Byron said. “I think running the truck race on Friday will help with that as well. It will help me get up to speed on what the track characteristics are like since we were there last fall.”
