FORT WORTH, Texas – When William Byron met Rick Hendrick a decade ago, the teenager who learned to race on a computer wasn’t very confident in how things would work out when he revealed his goal of one day driving for the NASCAR team owner.
There’s certainly no lack of confidence now for Byron, who at 26 is notching wins for NASCAR’s winningest team, and some significant ones at that. A week after Byron’s 13th career 1-2-3 victory for Hendrick Motorsports at Martinsville, as the team celebrated the 40th anniversary of his first victory, the series is back in Texas, where he has led only the last six laps last September to get Hendrick’s 300th victory.
“For me, it felt like a full circle moment. Just with the whole Martinsville thing, being in the 24 (car) … talking to Rick on the phone and then going to celebrate with him,” Byron said Saturday.
Byron, who qualified sixth at Texas, opened this season by winning the Daytona 500, Hendrick’s record ninth but first since 2014. He also won three weeks ago at the other Texas race, in Austin.
Hendrick’s teammate, Kyle Larson, is the points leader and took the pole for Sunday’s race at Texas, a 1.5-mile track like Las Vegas, where he scored his victory this season. He led 99 laps at Texas last fall, but got loose and hit the wall with 85 laps to go. Larson won on the pole in the 2021 fall race, where he also won the NASCAR All-Star race earlier that year.
“It’s always been a really good track for me,” Larson said. “Last year I messed up on one of the late restarts and spun and crashed, but we had a dominant race car that day. We hope to have another race car like this.”
Larson’s 18 wins since joining Hendrick in 2021 include the team’s record 269th victory that year at Charlotte Motor Speedway to surpass Petty Enterprises.
Byron grew up in the NASCAR hub of Charlotte, North Carolina, and idolized seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson in Hendrick’s No. 48 car. Now Byron is in his seventh season in the famous No. 24 that Jeff Gordon drove to win four Cup titles and 93 races.
“I was put in Jeff’s car and that was a lot of pressure. And I had to, we had to do it our way,” Byron said. “Jeff is a great mentor and a great asset to our team. … He made it clear when I got in the car that it was mine.
After reaching victory lane for the first time in his 98th start in 2020, Byron notched another victory in 2021 and two more in 2022 before a Cup-record six wins last year. His three wins this season have been at drastically different tracks — the 2 1/2-mile tri-oval at Daytona, the road course at Austin and that half-mile paperclip at Martinsville.
“I think I started a little slower than I wanted to. I feel like part of it was just chemistry and just learning the Cup Series as a whole, and I probably didn’t get as much out of those first few years as I wanted to,” Byron said. “Once we started winning races in the third year, we won one race and then the next year we won another one and we really started winning races in places that are hard to win, I felt like we started to click.”
Johnson, 48, will race in Texas for the first time since 2020 as the driver-owner of the No. 84 Legacy Motor Club Chevrolet. Johnson finished 28th at Daytona in his only start so far this season. He has raced 35 times at Texas, where he is the all-time leader with seven wins and 1,152 laps led.
“It’s funny now the way the place works. I’m just really excited about Turns 1 and 2,” said Johnson, whose last win here was in 2017, the first year after the track was repaved and reconfigured in those corners. “The previous setup, which was really the most fun you can have in a mile and a half, was turns 1 and 2. I’m so bummed it’s not there yet.”
This was before practice, when Johnson got loose in those corners and the number 84 crashed into the outside wall. The team was working to repair the lead car for Sunday’s race.
For the first time in 20 years, the only Cup race in Texas will be in the spring. The track hosted two Cup races each season from 2005 to 2020, but for the past three years the only stop each year has been a fall playoff race. The track was a spring-only stop from its opening in 1997 until 2004.
The Texas was reduced from 334 laps to 267 last September, the first time it wasn’t scheduled for 501 miles. The race is scheduled for 400.5 miles again this year, the 44th running in Texas. … Larson, like last fall, is listed as the favorite to win on Sunday, according to FanDuel Sportsbook.
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