NASCAR takeaways: William Byron into Round of 8 with late surge at Texas
FORT WORTH, Texas — Rick Hendrick felt relatively good about earning his 300th Cup win with about 30 laps left in the NASCAR Cup Series race Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway. Kyle Larson was driving away from the field.
Hendrick celebrated that 300th win in victory lane, but it wasn't Larson, who spun out battling side-by-side with Bubba Wallace following a restart with 20 laps to go. Larson's teammate, William Byron, in fourth on a restart with six laps remaining, was able to make a couple of moves and maneuver past Wallace for the lead and sped away to his sixth triumph of the season.
"My knees were weak after watching that," Hendrick said. "I've done this a lot. It is not supposed to bother you that much.
"But if anybody tells you that it doesn't shake you when you're in that one-to-go deal and your car is battling for the lead, they're lying to you."
[William Byron 1-on-1: On being a championship favorite, his path from iRacing]
The victory in the opening race of the second playoff round advanced Byron to the Round of 8 (the semifinal round) with races at Talladega Superspeedway and the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course remaining.
"Mr. H took a chance on me when I was 17 years old and he told me that I was going to be in a Cup car," Byron said.
"And we sat there in his basement at his house in Charlotte and I just felt the confidence from that conversation and just felt like, eventually, we could get to a level to where we could win races."
Takeaways from a Texas race where Byron was followed across the finish line by four other playoff drivers — Ross Chastain, Bubba Wallace, Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin:
Byron Great Move To Win
Byron's move to win had him hugging the inside grove past Wallace, who had been battling Chase Briscoe for the lead in the middle and upper groove.
"I needed to have some forward momentum, and I got that going into Turn 1 and luckily didn't have any pressure from behind and was able to back my center up a little bit," Byron said.
"And I saw the 14 [of Briscoe] started to chase the 23 [of Wallace] up and I didn't think they were going to get tight enough to lose momentum but they did. I just shot to the bottom and was able to get clear there."
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The 25-year-old Byron won for the 10th time in his 210th career start. Six of those victories have come this year.
"That move William made was textbook," Hendrick said. "I'm so proud of him diving in there and holding his own and. When he can smell the front, he's awesome."
Wallace Sees Win Slip Away
Wallace led a career-high 111 laps, but that was little solace.
"Did I lead the last one?" Wallace said with a voice full of disappointment.
Wallace has yet to win this year and missed a chance to advance to the next round of the playoffs. Instead, he is two points below the cutline.
"He beat me fair and square," Wallace said. "He just out-restarted me. And it's just frustrating because I really take pride in my restarts and try to do everything right and I let everybody down today and it sucks."
It looked like Wallace was going to win a battle of wills in the race as he took the lead when Larson spun as they were side-by-side.
"It was a fun battle for sure," Wallace said. "We were fighting hard for a whole lap, and I thought it was going to be like that the whole time because I wasn't going to lift until he was going to lift and that's unfortunately what happened.
"Unfortunately he crashed and ruined his day, but we're fighting for a win here in the playoffs and trying to get to the next round."
Larson said: "He did a good job to stay with me during the restart between [Turns] 3 and 4 and all that. I tried to open up and have my shape into [Turn] 1. With these cars, you normally don't get sucked around like that, so I wasn't really expecting that and thought that I would be fine. I just lost it and crashed."
Wallace, Tyler Reddick (three points below the cutoff), Ryan Blaney (-11) and Kyle Busch (-17) will need to rally over the next couple of races to advance.
"We try to keep fighting," Wallace said. "We've got to keep growing and learning and processing things better. That's what playoffs is about, what NASCAR is about. Got to keep going."
Hamlin Contact With Teammate
Denny Hamlin had contact with teammate Ty Gibbs on pit road early in the race, resulting in enough damage to end Gibbs' day and also impact Hamlin's race.
Hamlin was able to continue in the top five for much of the day and finished fifth.
"It definitely took speed out of our car and hate it for Ty certainly — it destroyed his car," Hamlin said. "I had the changer from the 2 [of Austin Cindric], I was trying to avoid him. He had just stood up to go around the left side of the car.
"I just swing out to avoid him and we were three-wide there. It's just a tough circumstance for everyone. In Ty's position, he's trying to race the guy off pit road that he's side-by-side with and he knows I'm coming out, but he doesn't know how far and so it's a very tough spot to be in for sure."
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass, and sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass.
