“I’m sure it will sting a lot tonight.” William Byron’s dejected words after the 2025 Goodyear 400 make perfect sense. The Hendrick Motorsports star dominated almost everything there is to dominate at the track, which is ‘Too Tough To Tame.’ He aced the treacherous wall-scraping and the tricky pit stops at Darlington Raceway for 243 laps, sweeping both stages. But his judgment sputtered when it came to one thing – tire management.

Temperatures soared above 80 degrees at the 1.366-mile oval track. Add extreme tire wear to that mix and you have a real challenge for drivers. Even William Byron was left scratching his head by the end of the event. However, Jeff Gordon, HMS Vice Chairperson, understood and stood by his racer.

William Byron gets a nod of acknowledgment

After all, the 2025 Daytona 500 winner gave his best. William Byron clinched the pole for the Goodyear 400 race with a 170.904 mph lap during qualifying. He led every single lap throughout the first two stages of the race, without ever losing his lead. He came dangerously close to Jeff Burton’s record of leading all laps in a 2000 New Hampshire race. But while Byron dazzled by staying out front and away from everyone, he lost his sparkle as soon as he slipped into traffic. All it took was one round of green-flag pit stops to unravel Byron’s advantage. Things changed when Tyler Reddick pitted on Lap 240 under green. William Byron lost about six seconds to Reddick as the latter had fresher tires.

Given the enormous fight that William Byron gave, his efforts deserve credit regardless of his failure in the last segment. That is what Jeff Gordon, four-time Cup Series champion and HMS executive, acknowledged. Gordon himself holds a jaw-dropping 7-time win record at Darlington Raceway – so he understands how difficult racing can be here. He told in an interview with Frontstretch: “Well, I mean, obviously, winning the pole and leading all those laps was a dominant performance by the 24 team, so that was great. You know, you gotta finish it off. And these things are hard to let you know to get everything to go exactly right for you. I thought they executed flawlessly.” 

After Tyler Reddick had toppled William Byron‘s momentum, the latter’s aspirations looked slim. He ended up losing spots to Ryan Blaney and Denny Hamlin as well, who also had fresher tires. Byron’s teammate, Kyle Larson, spun out on lap 291, throwing him a window of opportunity to run up to second. But he never could topple Hamlin’s charge. Jeff Gordon continued, acknowledging how hard it was to constantly cope with tire management. “The Green Flag pit stops really switched things up, and that seemed to be the game changer. You know, a couple of great stops on that last round of pit stops, but the #11 came out front and were able to pull off the win, so great win for them.”

Indeed, it was a great and unexpected win for the No. 11 team. While William Byron nurses his wounds, Denny Hamlin cherishes his back-to-back victory – which he precisely prepared for.

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The King did what he does best

Approaching Darlington Raceway, eyes were primarily on one driver. Denny Hamlin is the King of the egg-shaped oval, leading with his four victories prior to the 2025 race. What is more, the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team broke the rumors surrounding its downfall. After losing his decades-long sponsor, FedEx, and his trusted crew chief, Hamlin drummed up doubts about his career. But he snuffed out all of that with a thumping victory at Martinsville Speedway. And he charged at the Goodyear 400 race with an equal amount of zest and enthusiasm. He qualified with the third-fastest speed at Darlington and figured that if he could make the pieces fall in place, it would be a success.

Denny Hamlin wanted to continue the story of excellence from Martinsville. He outlined his goals prior to the Darlington race: “To get a win early, just to start to get some playoff bonus points, that’s always a great thing. When we come here, absolutely, I know what I need out of the car. I’ll know within the first few laps of practice whether it’s got the ‘it’ that it needs to be good, and if not, we’ll go to work on it. But the confidence I have is knowing exactly what I need at this track. I know how to enter the corner; I know how to exit it. I know how much gas and brake to apply to make good speed here. It’s just a matter of whether the car’s working directly on that day, and if it isn’t, we can get it pretty close, usually.”

Eventually, as we know, the ‘Lady in Black’ chose her favorite dance partner this time. Denny Hamlin soared to victory, while William Byron chafed with regret. Yet, the latter may thunder back with a stronger conviction next weekend.