William Byron said he had nightmares coming to Martinsville Speedway this weekend, remembering his last visit when he struggled to a 13th-place finish.
He not only overcame those fears, he put a cherry on top of
the weekend when Hendrick Motorsports celebrated the anniversary of its first
win 40 years ago by picking up No. 305.
“It was one of the worst experiences as a team, but one of
the best experiences to realize the resilience that our team has. And I think
that that showed today,” Byron said of last October’s penultimate race of the
season.
This Sunday was different. Electing to stay out on old tires
for the two-lap overtime finish, Byron won for the third time this season in
eight races and led an historic 1-2-3 finish for Hendrick.
“It’s awesome and it’s way bigger than me,” Byron said.
Byron took the lead with 73 laps to go and held on after a
second straight race ended in overtime, outrunning teammates Kyle Larson and
Chase Elliott for the win.
Byron, the first of the contenders to pit under a green flag
with 104 laps to go, moved to the front 31 laps later and was never threatened
after getting the jump at the start of overtime. It was his second victory on
the 0.526-mile, paper-clip shaped oval.
“It was a great call. It didn’t get us the track position
right away, but we had a little bit more heat in our tires,” Byron said of the
call to pit, which ultimately gave him the lead. “So, seemed like I fired off a
little bit faster than those guys and was able to get ahead of them.”
He stayed out when John Hunter Nemechek crashed in turn
three with three laps to go, as did Elliott and Larson, running second and
third, and they produced the first 1-2-3 finish for any team in Martinsville’s
long history hosting stock car races.
Larson rallied to finish second, Elliott third, Bubba
Wallace fourth and Ryan Blaney, last fall’s winner here, fifth. The fourth
Hendrick driver, Alex Bowman, finished eighth.
“This is a huge win for the organization,” four-time
Hendrick series champion Jeff Gordon, now the vice chairman of the
organization, said.
The race featured long green flag runs, with two of the five
cautions pre-planned at the end of stages one and two. There were 13 lead
changes among eight drivers.
The victory was the 29th for Hendrick at NASCAR’s smallest,
oldest track, a record for an organization at any venue. Geoff Bodine had the
first win at Martinsville on April 29, 1984. It convinced team owner Rick
Hendrick not to fold his fledgling team.
All four Hendrick cars featured ruby red paint schemes,
marking the anniversary.
The Hendrick organization hosted more than 1,000 current and
former employees for the race, but the owner was not able to attend, having
recently undergone knee replacement surgery.
“He’s super bummed out that he couldn’t be here,” Gordon
said.
Larson, the defending race winner and pole-sitter, led all
80 laps in the first stage. Joey Logano gambled by taking right side tires only
during pit stops after the stage and led the first 83 laps of green-flag racing
in the second stage before Denny Hamlin passed him to win the stage.
Hamlin, a five-time winner at Martinsville, finished 11th.
TOUGH DAY
Christopher Bell, who began the race sixth in points and
already with a victory, went three laps down early, gained one back after stage
two stops, then spun out early in the final stage, bringing out the fourth
caution. He finished 35th out of 37 drivers, four laps down.
UP NEXT
The series move across the country to Texas Motor Speedway,
where the drivers hope the repaved track will have cured some to allow for more
passing since the repave.