Daytona 500 winner William Byron stopped by Jalopnik to speak about how he ended up in victory lane lower than 24 hours in the past. Effective technique, preparation and teamwork put the Hendrick Motorsports driver in competition, however two late-rate cautions performed a major position in deciding a winner. While Daytona is understood for wrecks that ship most automobiles to the scrapyard, this yr’s affair was comparatively calm till the finale.
When I requested Byron if he thought the race could be clear for thus lengthy, he replied, “Honestly, no. I thought there could be ten or 15 wrecks in the race.” There had been solely three cautions for crashes throughout all the 200-lap race. Byron added, “It was a weird race. Like I felt like there were a lot of times I was about to key [the radio] up and say, Man, I feel like there’s going to be a wreck.”
The lack of cautions did impression how the race was pushed. Fuel mileage was a big focus for a lot of the space. The 26-year-old famous that the center lane was “the place to be” to avoid wasting gas throughout lengthy runs, however the benefit light because the race went on. Eventually, the sphere was pressured to make inexperienced flags pit stops to achieve the end.
Green flag pit cycles may be essentially the most intense side of racing at Daytona. Byron mentioned, “I don’t know how there’s not more crashes” when drivers merge again onto the superspeedway. The new Daytona 500 winner cited pace variations between the pack and rejoining automobiles. He added, “Most of the guys are dicks about it because they’ll just slide right up in front of a big pack of cars going ten miles an hour faster. In the driver’s meeting, they said not to do that. But, they don’t enforce it.”
The No. 24 Chevy Camaro was fortunate to flee the Big One unscathed regardless of Byron enjoying a task in beginning it together with his teammate Alex Bowman. With lower than ten laps to go, Byron and his workforce used the purple flag to sport plan their last restart and leaned on info that they studied earlier than the race.
The Charlotte native took the lead and stayed out in entrance when the warning got here out on the final lap. However, the warning took Byron abruptly as a result of within the second he anticipated to race to the checkered flag. He was “bracing for what move I needed to make next to try to defend my position.” Byron’s victory put Hendrick Motorsport stage with Petty Enterprises for most Daytona 500s wins for a workforce. Byron’s identify will now be featured within the document books alongside the well-known names that received the Great American Race for Rick Hendrick, like Darrell Waltrip, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Source: jalopnik.com