It has been a while since the #24 Chevrolet Camaro was seen on the victory lane. Nine races, to be exact. While this might not be that large a gap for many other drivers, it is for someone like William Byron. The Hendrick Motorsports superboy has run riot this season with three victories and multiple top-10 finishes. Will he score maximum points once again this Sunday at New Hampshire?
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The Magic Mile has proven to be meaner to Byron than other tracks have. He has yet to secure a top-10 finish in the six Cup Series starts he has had. However, he has continued to be a threat in all these races and procured a best finish of 11th place in 2020 and 2022. It is now up to him and his crew chief Rudy Fugle to break the wall in front of them and prove their short-track caliber.
He expressed his confusion about the reasons for his team not being able to run well in New Hampshire when speaking to the press recently. He said, “It just seems like with our current team, we just haven’t really been very good there. We just have to figure out what that is. We’ll go through a lot of notes this week and kind of have something comparable to go run there.”
Chief Fugle is all up to the challenge as well. He added on top of Byron’s words, “It’s just a really hard track for the teams and the drivers. That usually makes a good show. When the difficulty is high for us it usually creates disparity, especially from short run to long run. It puts on a good show. I’m looking forward to that challenge and to see if we can repeat some of what we found last weekend at Iowa (Speedway) and make it a little better.”
What are William Byron’s chances of victory at New Hampshire?
Positively, Byron and Fugle have got a few factors working in favor of them ahead of Sunday. Byron finished last weekend’s race at Iowa in second place and brought in some crucial momentum. With the similarities that NHMS shares with Iowa, he can hope for a similar result once again. He will however have to find that extra edge this time and push past any other car that might be ahead of him.
The upcoming race will mark his 48th start on a short track (1 to 1.37 miles in length). He has two wins, ten top-5 finishes, and 20 top-10 finishes. He is currently fourth on the points table in a comfortable position having already made it to the playoffs three times over. He could probably call it a day and not strive for the win if not for the need to score playoff points and ambition didn’t drive him.
