In Martinsville Speedway’s Xfinity 500, Hendrick Motorsports once again exerted its dominance at NASCAR’s shortest track but this time it was William Bryon, not point leader Kyle Larson, who broke a winless streak.
Prior to Sunday, Byron’s last victory came a year ago at Martinsville—35—races ago. His fourth victory at the paper-clipped shaped track not only broke a winless streak for him, it also provided Hendrick with the organization’s 33rd victory at the facility. Ironically, it was Hendrick’s first Martinsville win in April 1984 that kept the doors open on the first-year race team which was operating without a sponsor at that time.
“Man, it’s been a fricking long road this year,” Byron said. “We had our struggles, but man, today feels damn good. This is the hardest I have worked in my career. The most I’ve been in the SIM. The most I’ve been in the shop.”
Byron’s 17th career victory came on the heels of a second-place finish to Larson a week ago at Talladega. Hendrick Motorsports has now won four of the last eight NASCAR Cup races.
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In Sunday’s Martinsville race, Byron led 362 of the 500 laps, which was more than twice the number of laps he’d led in the season’s first 34 races, which was 356.
With Byron’s victory, Hendrick Motorsports swept the races this year at the 0.526-mile track. Chase Elliott won the 400-lap spring race and finished 2.049 seconds behind Byron in Sunday’s event.
“I just needed some rear tires,” said Elliott, who stopped by victory lane to congratulate his teammate. “I was running as hard as I could go. I really fell off hard on the run before, and I think that’s probably what hurt me the most with having to make up that gap. William had that gap to play with, and he did a great job managing that. He saved and he knew I was pressing.”
Elliott’s second was his best finish since May when he won at Texas. He now has two top-five finishes in the last three races.
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William Byron (left) and Chase Elliott.
Sunday’s race had six caution flags for 47 laps, but none of them occurred in the final 229 laps.
“Chase is so good at managing his tires. I felt like I was going to have to do a really good job just to keep my tires happy through lapped traffic,” Byron said.
In the fight for this year’s championship, Larson never led a lap in the event that had 11 lead changes among six drivers, but he rebounded from a lap down in the race’s first half to post a ninth-place finish. He goes to the season finale at Homestead with a 67-point lead over Christopher Bell in second. Denny Hamlin dropped to third, 70 points behind Larson. Chase Briscoe is fourth in the standings but with his 84-point deficit he is no longer in contention for this year’s title.
A North Carolina native, Deb Williams is an award-winning motorsports journalist who is in her fourth decade covering auto racing. In addition to covering the sport for United Press International, she has written motorsports articles for several newspapers, magazines and websites including espnW.com, USA Today, and The Charlotte Observer. Her awards include the American Motorsports Media Award of Excellence, two-time National Motorsports Press Association writer of the year, and two-time recipient of the Russ Catlin award. She also has won an award in the North Carolina Press Association’s sports feature category. During her career, Deb has been managing editor of GT Motorsports magazine and was with Winston Cup Scene and NASCAR Winston Cup Scene for 18 years, serving as the publication’s editor for 10 years. In 2024 she was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame.