The Aug. 9 NASCAR Cup Series race at Iowa Speedway couldn’t come at a better time for William Byron.
The defending Iowa winner has an average finish of 1.5 in the two Cup Series races at the 0.875-mile short track in Newton, Iowa, as he finished runner-up to Ryan Blaney in 2024. He also has wins at the track in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
Byron led 141 of 350 laps in the 2025 Cup race at Iowa and enters this year’s event on a 23-race winless streak. While he’s not in huge danger of missing the Chase — his gap to the cut line is 88 points with four races left in the regular season — he and the No. 24 team could use a win.
William Byron needs good run at Iowa
Twelfth in the Cup standings isn’t where most pundits would’ve predicted Byron, the defending regular season champion and a Championship 4 driver a year ago, to be after 22 races. Yet that’s where the two-time Daytona 500 champion finds himself going into Iowa.
Byron hasn’t finished top 10 since Chicagoland on July 5 and has only four top fives on the year. Hendrick Motorsports as a whole hasn’t put a car inside the top 10 since Byron and Alex Bowman finished fourth and fifth, respectively, at Chicagoland.
Iowa has the chance to be a saving grace for Byron as he and the No. 24 HMS group look to build momentum going into the Chase.