Byron denied a piece of NASCAR history at Darlington

William Byron had one of the most dominant performances in recent NASCAR Cup Series history Sunday at Darlington Raceway, but strategy thwarted a perfect day.

Byron led the first 243 laps Sunday afternoon. He was in control to lead every lap in the Goodyear 400, which would have made him the first driver to accomplish the feat in the series since 2000, when the green-flag pit cycle began in the final stage. As the race leader, Byron was at a disadvantage as the competition not only short-pitted the No. 24 team but, without a caution that would have kept Byron at the front, cycled ahead of him.

Byron made his pit stop and gave the lead to Denny Hamlin. Tyler Reddick then cycled to the lead when the pit cycle was complete, as he was among the first to have hit pit road.

Reddick led until there were four laps to go when passed by Ryan Blaney. Byron was fading at that point but was given another opportunity to win the race when the caution flew.

The Hendrick driver came off pit road in third position and restarted on the outside of the second row. He was able to get to second, but Hamlin grabbed the victory. Hamlin came off pit road with the lead.

“We had a great pit stop there at the very end and I was able to line up on the second row,” Byron said. “ need the front row to have a shot to win here, so it sucks. It’ll sting to be this close, but at the same time I’m really proud of that effort by our whole team. It shows what we’re made of and hopefully a lot more of that to come.”

Byron led the most laps and won both stages. He also started from the pole.

“I knew we were fast ,” Rudy Fugle, Byron’s crew chief, told RACER. “I knew our first few laps in practice were really, really quick for group two, but then we fell off. We had balance issues and struggled, so I really thought we would struggle a little bit more with the long-run balance than we did today. But clean air helped us a ton … I knew we had speed, but I didn’t know that we could do what we did.”

Jeff Burton was the last driver to lead every lap in a Cup Series race. In September 2000, Burton led 300 laps at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The race featured restrictor plates on the cars after the deaths of Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin Jr. the year before.

“I didn’t know that exactly, but I was thinking, ‘Let’s just pitch a perfect game here,’” Byron said. “I felt we were in a position to have a perfect game, perfect race, I should say, and that would have been pretty impressive. It sucks, but nobody is at fault. Those guys could be aggressive on the other side of us, and this is turning into a big strategy place, and we just couldn’t keep control.”

Fugle told his driver, “Sorry, man,” over the radio after the checkered flag. Byron said there was nothing to be sorry about and praised the car and the team, calling it a championship effort.

Byron, who won the Daytona 500, has been the points leader ever since.

“I feel like we’re a way stronger team this year,” he said. “I don’t feel we ever had this performance last year in us. We won some races, sure, but they were mostly capitalizing on the end of the race or things like that, or having good track position. But this was a dominant race from start to finish. I just wish we could have been, obviously, closer there at the end. It just fuels the fire for the rest of the weeks coming up.”

“That’s what you’re looking to do — be a strong team, show how good we are from top to bottom, inside and out, and what we can do every week at every kind of track,” Fugle said. “We’re here to win. That’s what they do — they throw confetti on it give you trophies and give you extra playoff points for winning, so that part really sucks, but other than that, we did a great job, and the team did a great job, and we’re a really strong team right now.”