The stakes are going to be really high as NASCAR rolls its course into Daytona, Florida. With just one regular season race left, there might be two or even three spots in the playoffs, up for grabs. And that too, based on points. Hence, the Glen was probably the last sane race of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series.

In Sunday’s race at the Watkins Glen International, the last 30 laps had it clear that the leader would ultimately grab the checkered flag and take the winner’s trophy home. And so Denny Hamlin and William Byron made their runs for the win. But the latter led 66 of the 90 laps and as he parked his number 24 Chevy in the victory lane, Hendrick Motorsports fans congratulated the Charlotte native on his 5th seasonal victory.

The HMS Chevy star was thrilled at his first road course victory

William Byron started the race in the second place. However, an ingenious strategy by crew chief Rudy Fugle on lap 22 seemed to make all the difference for Byron. Rudy called Byron down to the pit road, a lap after the leader, and from there, he managed to grab the lead by lap 24. “It was kind of like the old F1-style – stay out, get clean air, get a good lap in and we pitted there and got the lead,” Byron laughed.

He maintained a stronghold in his position till lap 55 when he pitted for the second time. After running three more laps, he snatched the lead away from the number 11 Toyota Camry on the lap 61 restart, and after that, there was no looking back for the 25-year-old speedster.

During the post-race interview, a NASCAR reporter asked Byron, “Maybe the most dominant win of your career?” Byron was not very sure if his first road course win stood out from all his previous wins but he admitted that it was really special for him. And that too for a lot of reasons.

The Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 driver said, “A huge credit to the race team behind me. I wanna thank Max Papis; it’s our first road course win, we’ve worked years and years for this so, just thanks to him. I know he’s watching back home.”

Famous motorist Max Papis has been mentoring Byron’s career since 2015, and the latter extended his heartfelt gratitude to the Italian race car legend.

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While Byron flaunted his dominant performance, his teammates did not have quite the run

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William Byron revealed that although his team had fast cars, they were lagging behind in execution. Since July and August, they were not able to bring out their A-games. He stated that for this weekend, his mindset was the biggest weapon that he had up his sleeve.

“I think it’s the racetracks itself and just came this weekend with a good mindset, trying to get ready for the pot season,” Byron said, “We’ve had fast cars, we just haven’t executed races but today it was flawless… It was a cool win.”According to a FOX Sports article, Byron exclaimed, “Guys don’t make a lot of mistakes. … I knew we had a great car in practice. We were really fast.”

Chase Elliott, however, ran out of fuel and luck with 36 laps to go till the start-finish line. While fans are most likely disappointed with this 32-place finish, the Golden Boy of Hendrick Motorsports is stuck in a precarious situation. He must win the Daytona 500 to burst the bubble and enter the playoffs.

Kyle Larson opened his mouth to Frontstretch as he revealed his mistakes that led him to make contact with Austin Dillon late in the race. He said, “I kind of dive-bombed him…as I was coming through the pack. Thankfully, he left me room because we would have crashed in.”

“I honestly wasn’t even trying to crash him, I was trying to maintain leverage into the final corner there. Just a frustrating result to what was going to be a good day,” he added.

Kyle Larson seemed to be taking it too harshly on himself as he vented, “I just sped on pit road and killed our race from there. Pretty upset with myself once again.”

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