Hendrick Motorsports’ prowess continues as William Byron earns another Southwest win

AVONDALE, Ariz. — Late cautions usually ruin the days for the drivers near the front.

But the last two weeks, it has done wonders for William Byron.

Byron led 176 laps at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last weekend, but it looked like Kyle Larson was going to win until a late yellow came out when Aric Almirola had issues and got into the wall. But after the shuffling of positions during a pit stop sequence and a strong final restart, it propelled Byron to his fifth career NASCAR Cup Series win.

Fast forward a week, and the same rang true at Phoenix Raceway.

Kevin Harvick was on the verge of victory No. 10 at the desert oval. It’s been his stomping grounds throughout his career, and it looked like he’d have at least one more trophy to add to his collection before his career as a Cup driver came to an end.

But when Harrison Burton brought out the yellow, Byron and several others elected to take two right-side tires on the final round of pit stops while Harvick’s No. 4 team went with four. Harvick defended crew chief Rodney Childers’ decision, but the Stewart-Haas Racing driver ended up fifth when the checkered flag waved.

“It’s what I would have done,” Harvick said of the four-tire stop. “I’d always rather be on offense.”

A two-tire stop was sensible, too, though. When Ryan Newman stole the win for a struggling Richard Childress Racing team in the March 2017 Phoenix race, crew chief Luke Lambert went with right sides only, and Newman was able to hold the field off for the final handful of laps.

It is worth noting that Phoenix’s finish line was on what is now that backstretch back then, and therefore the trajectory of restarts was not as chaotic as they are now with divebombs on the dogleg. Still, the leaders always seem to retain their position once they clear the competition coming out of the turns.

Byron has taken two tires on the final stop for two weeks in a row. Two weeks in a row, he leaves with the trophy. He wasn’t counting on it happening twice in a row this time around, though.

“I wasn’t counting my blessings,” Byron said post-race. “I was kind of like, man; it went so good last week, I’m probably going to end up crashing here.

“When you have that level of commitment, you know you have on a green-white-checkered to come out the other side. It’s either going to go really good or not.

“I don’t love winning races that way. It’s very stressful. It’s a lot of tactics going on with the restarts. But it’s fun. It’s a good challenge for us because you’re all tired, you’re all into that long-run mode mentally, then you have to have a pit stop and somehow reset and get into how do I get a good restart.”

Hendrick Motorsports had all four cars finish in the top 10. Larson finished fourth, while Alex Bowman and Josh Berry, subbing for the injured Chase Elliott, took ninth and 10th, respectively.

“To have a week to prepare with this group and talk about things and look at data and use the simulators gives you a little bit more confidence,” Berry said. “All I can expect from myself is just my best effort, and I feel like I have given 110 percent at this to be successful, and I think as long as I do that, I’ll be happy with myself.”

Berry is filling big shoes as the temporary replacement for NASCAR’s most popular driver, and it’s created “mixed” reviews from Elliott’s fans.

“Ever since my win at Martinsville in the Xfinity car, I feel like I have received a lot of positive responses from the fans,” Berry told The Circuit Journal. “This week was a little tough. I felt like I took a little unnecessary criticism for the situation I was placed in and my first time in a Next Gen car. But I think we answered that doubt today.

“We proved that we can work together, trust the process, and run well at the Cup level.”

Except for the Cup race at Circuit of The Americas, Berry will be in the No. 9 Chevy until Elliott can return. IMSA ace Jordan Taylor will be in the car at COTA to make his NASCAR debut.

Taylor, who has an alter ego as a Jeff Gordon superfan named Rodney Sandstorm, has raced with Gordon previously. The two were members of the driver lineup that won the 2017 Rolex 24 at Daytona.

“I think the road course just opened up the door for if we look at an option that is sort of a road-racing option,” said Gordon, the Vice Chairman of Hendrick. “We feel confident in Josh and want to keep Josh in the car as much as possible. But I raced with Jordan Taylor. He’s very talented. He’s been in our Garage 56 car, showing a lot of speed. Just the right timing and place to be able to pull that off.”

Three of Hendrick’s drivers are in the top five in the standings. Byron leads the playoff grid as a two-time winner, and Bowman, who has started the season with four consecutive top 10s, leads the points picture.

Hendrick had louvers, the vent piece on the hood, taken off all four cars by NASCAR on Friday. NASCAR will evaluate the pieces, and if there are any penalties, they would be announced later in the week. So the team has this to be concerned about, but the cars nonetheless have the speed to win on any given weekend right now.

“I can tell you it was weighing on all of our minds coming into today,” Gordon said. “Certainly will continue.

“We had some conversations, will continue to have conversations, with NASCAR. Every situation is sort of unique, but this is a more unique one than I’ve seen in a while where there’s been a lot of communication back and forth on this particular part, especially for this racetrack because they did a parity test in the wind tunnel.

“I think it really opened up the door for some miscommunication. I don’t want to go any further than that. We’ll continue to just share all the facts and be transparent with NASCAR as we have been so far.”