Byron Survives Bristol, Advances in Playoffs
Byron was able to race well when it counted most, advancing to the round of 12 by finishing in third place in the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway Sept. 18.
Byron began the race in 14th place and quietly ran in the back half of the top 10 throughout the stage. He moved as high as seventh in the order but fell back to finish 10th by the end of stage one.
Stage two had Byron, once again, running throughout the back half of the top 10 before the turning point came under caution at lap 221. Crew Chief Rudy Fugle elected to keep Byron out on the race track under the caution to earn some much-needed stage points.
Starting in eighth on the restart with fresh tires hot on his heels, Byron fought his way forward. He would battle with Kyle Busch, Bubba Wallace, Chase Elliot and Kevin Harvick to move into fourth place by the end of the stage, earning seven stage points. With the additional points earned in stage one, Byron had eaten eight points out of the 18-point deficit he came into the race with.
Byron had to pit before the final stage, which put him in 16th place. He continued to show great speed as he slowly picked his way through the pack into fifth place. All the while, his rival for the final transfer spot, Aric Almirola, was at the worst he had been all night and fell outside of the top 15.
After Kyle Busch and Chase Elliot suffered from flat tires towards the end of the race, Byron gained a couple of extra spots to move up to third while Almirola limped home in 18th. Byron took the 12th and final spot in the round of 12 by two points.
“Honestly, I don’t think I breathed for the last 100 laps,” Byron said after the race to NBCSN’s Dillon Welch.
The next round features some unpredictable tracks, including Las Vegas, Talladega and the Charlotte ROVAL, a road course and oval hybrid. Byron is confident, however, that he will find a way into the next round. He is seeded eighth in the round of 12.
“I think we’re going to some really good tracks,” Byron said to Welch. “We won on a mile and a half earlier this year [at] the ROVAL. We’ve been really fast there [and] have had a number of poles on road courses.”
Byron’s next race will be the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Sept. 26 at 7 p.m. EST on NBCSN. He finished eighth there in March while also leading 25 laps.
Las Vegas Motor Speedway was opened in 1996 as a 1.5-mile tri-oval. Originally a relatively flat track with 12 degrees of banking, it was reconfigured before the 2007 season to make it 20 degrees of banking, making the race track significantly faster.
Lipowski is a sports reporter. Follow him on Twitter at @jlipowski18.