MARTINSVILLE, Va. — The back-to-back heartbreaks William Byron had suffered in NASCAR’s semifinal playoff round would have doomed some drivers and teams.

But instead of letting it defeat him, perhaps as it would have in his younger days, the 27-year-old Byron embraced the setbacks.

He walked into the Martinsville Speedway media center on Saturday and declared he wasn’t ruing the lost points from incidents at Las Vegas and Talladega because he liked the thought of being in a clear must-win situation.

Byron preferred to be on offense, he said, instead of trying to race for points — which he had done the last two years at Martinsville and nearly coughed up a championship berth both times.

He also took a stoic’s approach to the whole thing: Byron needed to win at Martinsville to advance to the championship race, and if he wasn’t good enough to do so, then Phoenix next week wouldn’t matter anyway.

But as it turned out, he was more than good enough to do so.

Byron ran the race of his life on Sunday, putting together the kind of perfect weekend no playoff driver had done before: He won the pole, swept both stages and won the race. He led a career-high 304 laps in the process and thrust himself into position to win a first career championship one week from now.

“From start to finish, it’s the best I’ve ever felt in the race car. And that’s a damn good feeling,” he said.

WILLIAM BYRON WINS AT MARTINSVILLE! 🏁 pic.twitter.com/bCutRmWGXA

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 26, 2025

The NASCAR regular-season champion began the playoffs with a lack of performance and appeared vulnerable, making his third straight Championship 4 appearance less likely. In the playoff opener at Darlington, for example, Byron finished 21st with a slow car; no one was talking championship then.

“We’re embarrassed,” crew chief Rudy Fugle said on the team radio after that race. “We didn’t do s— today. We’ve got to improve and get better and race our a— off every week or it’s going to be a long offseason.”

But the No. 24 team did improve, advanced to the semifinal round and appeared to have a great chance — until the lapped car of Ty Dillon inexplicably slowed without warning at Las Vegas and Byron smashed into his car, destroying both.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Byron was in position to get a top five at Talladega on the last lap until Carson Hocevar spun him just before the finish line and cost Byron 20 points — enough to make Martinsville a must-win.

And how did Byron respond? By showing up with a winner’s mentality at Martinsville, determined to execute on what he could control and hope that was good enough.

“It’s been a lot of heartbreak this year,” he said. “You just channel those things, just learn from them. And if you can learn from them, they become positives. They become things you lean on in the moment.

“For some people, they become like scars and things you can’t get past. But I found a way to flip that script, either this week or sometime during these playoffs, and it went the other way.”

Hendrick steps up

Hendrick Motorsports ended up taking up half of the Championship 4 spots and Team Penske got zero — this despite Penske having a notable edge on shorter, flatter tracks entering the playoffs.

In fact, the playoff schedule lined up better than ever for Penske’s strengths with the addition of New Hampshire and Gateway, plus Talladega in Round 3 as an opportunity for the superspeedway aces Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney.

Hendrick, meanwhile, had shown a weakness on the types of tracks that mattered. It was Blaney who won the last two fall Martinsville races, and Penske had won three straight championships at Phoenix despite Hendrick’s best efforts.

But on media day before the playoffs began, when I tried explaining to Byron why I had no Hendrick drivers in my Championship 4 picks, he brought up an interesting point: The increase of those tracks actually could provide extra test sessions for Hendrick to work on their setups and improve.

So after Sunday, I had to know: Did he really believe that at the time, or was that just long-shot optimism that coincidentally came true?

“Those things are real,” Byron said. “The notes are real. When I got out of the car after we finished third (at New Hampshire), I was like, ‘Man, that was awesome.’

“I had what I needed in the car. (Blaney) was just a little bit better, but I knew that was a good step. I was hoping that applied to this weekend.”

These #NASCARPlayoffs have tested @WilliamByron.

Today, he rose to the occasion. 👏 pic.twitter.com/Qgbc0F3Ctj

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 26, 2025

And it did. In the end, Byron went heads-up with a Penske car to battle for the win and prevailed, showing Hendrick erased whatever deficit it may have had. Now the question will be whether that shows itself at Phoenix as well.

“Last year we stepped it up, and it still wasn’t enough,” Hendrick vice chairman Jeff Gordon said of getting better on the shorter tracks. “This year, it became a much bigger priority.”

Larson was speaking about his own team specifically and not Hendrick as a whole, but he summed up the turnaround when he said: “I didn’t think that we could kind of flip that switch in the playoffs, but it just proves 10 weeks is a long time.”

A win for the playoffs

Martinsville, for once, played out straightforwardly and without drama or controversy. There was no “Hail Melon” this year, no race manipulation, no drivers vowing revenge for perceived slights.

The drivers who didn’t advance — Blaney, Logano, Christopher Bell and Chase Elliott — said they simply got beat by better cars. They didn’t make mistakes or choke their opportunities away; their teams just weren’t good enough.

That helped produce one of the strongest Championship 4 fields yet — a highly credible group which includes the season wins leader (Denny Hamlin), laps led leader/regular-season champion (Byron), top-fives leader/poles leader (Chase Briscoe) and another driver who ranks second in three major categories (Larson).

Of course, this happened in a year when NASCAR is almost certainly moving away from this format. Go figure.

“Ultimately, the format has a lot of positives around it, and this year, four of the right guys ended up making it,” said Bell, who has been an advocate of scrapping the playoffs and returning to a 36-race system. “Whoever the champion is out of those four is going to be a deserving champion. This year, the format worked out, and I’m content with the results.”

That doesn’t mean it deserves to stick around. From this view, the one-race playoff has done more harm than good (though others may debate that). But in this case, a year in which six drivers had a legitimate case for being among the final four, there will be no argument over whether someone was a worthy champion or not — at least in the Cup Series.

Xfinity Xcellence

With the exception of Sam Mayer (what are you doing, Sam?), the Xfinity Series had a far more respectable race at Martinsville than the ugly show in the spring.

No one, including the drivers, seemed to have much faith Saturday night would be significantly cleaner than the one we saw earlier this year — especially considering the stakes.

And when three drivers in desperate, must-win situations lined up in the first two rows for the overtime restart, there was an understandably ill feeling for many in the stands.

Nothing tastes as sweet as your first career win!

This Victory Burnout for @Taylor_Gray is presented by @krispykreme. pic.twitter.com/5fHnRxhjKN

— NASCAR Xfinity (@NASCAR_Xfinity) October 26, 2025

Instead, Taylor Gray got away cleanly and never gave anyone a chance for any shenanigans — and maybe there would not have been any, based on how spring race bulldozer Sammy Smith responded to a question from Fox Sports’ Bob Pockrass about the last lap.

“I wasn’t close enough to move him the right way, and if I move him like I did in the spring, I’m going to get blackballed and get thrown out of the playoffs anyway — and probably parked,” Smith said.

That shows NASCAR’s deterrent message is working. Now we’ll see how officials respond to Mayer, who destroyed another car out of anger after the checkered flag — historically a big no-no in NASCAR’s eyes.

Mayer caused approximately $30,000 of damage to Jeb Burton’s Jordan Anderson Racing car; would a points penalty for the season finale or a monetary fine really send any sort of a message? It will be interesting to see how NASCAR handles it, and the result could set another precedent for the next situation.

Championship 4cast

Each week during the playoffs, we took a look at the projected Championship 4 drivers. With the field now set, here’s a look at how my pre-playoffs picks performed:

1. Joey Logano: Eliminated at Martinsville. Logano needed to win and ran as high as second during the race, but felt he lost control of a restart and then was thwarted by the timing of Erik Jones’ caution during green-flag pit stops.

“Bummed,” Logano said. “I don’t know if there’s another word for it. I’m just bummed one of us (Penske cars) didn’t make it. We just couldn’t get the job done today, or really the last three races. The four there deserve to be there. That’s how I always look at it, and this year we didn’t deserve to be there.”

2. Ryan Blaney: Eliminated at Martinsville. Blaney led a season-high 177 laps and had control of the race after driving through the field from 34th place, but ultimately didn’t have enough to hold off Byron for the win and claim a walk-off Martinsville victory for the third straight season.

“Going into this weekend, I just wanted a shot to win the race, and we had that tonight, and it just didn’t really play out,” he said. “The 24 was just a little better than us, and they got the job done, so props to them.”

3. Denny Hamlin: Won at Las Vegas to advance to the Championship 4. Hamlin’s other finishes in the round were 24th at Talladega and 35th at Martinsville (with a blown engine), so it’s a good thing he won Vegas. Now he will have a very good chance to finally claim his first career championship at Phoenix.

“I think I’m going to have to win (the race) next week if I’m going to win the championship, and we’re going to come prepared for that,” he said.

4. Chase Briscoe: Won at Talladega to advance to the Championship 4. Briscoe could very well become a champion in his first year at Joe Gibbs Racing, completing NASCAR’s modern rags-to-riches story. And it’s a good thing he won at Talladega, because he blew an engine and finished last at Martinsville.

“That win last weekend feels so much better now,” he posted on X afterward.

Championship predictions

NASCAR Truck Series: It had better be Corey Heim, he of the most dominant season in Truck Series history. Should something happen to Heim in the final race or he fails to finish it off, the amount of power used by fans to write angry posts on NASCAR X will make AI’s power usage look tame.

NASCAR Xfinity Series: Justin Allgaier goes back-to-back, thwarting JR Motorsports teammate Connor Zilisch in this all-Chevrolet final. But Aric Almirola wins the owner’s championship for Joe Gibbs Racing, somewhat dampening the celebration.

NASCAR Cup Series: I can’t believe I’m typing this, but Denny Hamlin finally outruns his bad luck and wins his first championship at age 44 — in a year when he’s suing NASCAR, of course.