William Byron is emerging among NASCAR’s biggest stars. But he’s still ‘the other guy’
William Byron has always had a chip on his shoulder.
The 2024 Daytona 500 winner and the NASCAR Cup Series’ defending wins leader has emerged as one of the sport’s biggest stars.
Deep down, the born-and-bred Charlottean is just a kid who’s grown up loving racing and is living out his dream. But he’d be remiss if he said certain things didn’t bother him. He won six Cup races in 2023 but fell short of the championship. Other drivers find themselves getting far more publicity than him at times, despite not necessarily having achieved the same success.
Byron, just 26 years old with 11 wins to his name, has the potential to be an all-time NASCAR great. He had one of the fastest cars pretty much every weekend last year, finishing more than half the races in the Top 10. And now, he’ll head to Atlanta this weekend as the only driver who has likely secured his spot in the 2024 Cup Series playoffs.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever get that chip off my shoulder,” Byron said. “It’s always been there. It’s just, I’m very quiet about it. I don’t know.
“There’s always reasons to find. We didn’t win the championship, and we don’t get talked about the most, and other people get more publicity, things like that, and I feel like I just — whatever I find, I use as motivation. It’s just the way I’ve always been internally. I don’t express that a lot. But it definitely burns inside.”
When Byron won the first of seven NASCAR Truck Series races in 2016, he was still a senior at Charlotte Country Day and worked with Rudy Fugle. He reached the Cup Series in 2018, was its Rookie of the Year, and made his first playoffs the following season.
With Chad Knaus — the legendary crew chief for Jimmie Johnson who entered the sport’s Hall of Fame last month — retiring after 2020, Hendrick brought in Fugle to pair with Byron. The reunion was a match instantly.
“Bringing Rudy on gave him that confidence because they were so successful in the Truck Series, and man, they just picked up and clicked,” team owner Rick Hendrick said. “He races like a guy that’s been doing it for a long time, doesn’t make many mistakes, but he just eats and drinks and sleeps winning. He puts in the work.
“I think Rudy can attest to that. But the guy is — I’ve never seen anyone any more dedicated putting in the work than he does.”
Overall, it’s Byron’s work ethic that’s lent to his success the most. Hendrick said that all Byron thinks about is racing. He’s constantly in the simulator, watching tapes and working hard to improve his performance.
Each year since 1968, some of NASCAR’s best drivers have descended on Pensacola, Fla., for the “Snowball Derby” —dubbed the Super Bowl of short-track racing — that has hosted Hall of Famers like Donnie Allison and Darrell Waltrip. Byron was this year’s headliner.
Still, he’s not even necessarily the superstar within his own team. Kyle Larson won the 2021 Cup title, and Chase Elliott is the 2020 champion and the sport’s most popular driver for the past six years.
He might be a star — now a Daytona 500 champion — and the only driver in the Cup Series with a playoff spot essentially locked up.
But Byron said it himself: “I’m the other guy.”
