{"id":47021,"date":"2025-08-05T12:40:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T12:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/47021\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T12:40:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T12:40:09","slug":"nascar-through-the-gears-william-byron-has-gas-bristol-bombs-at-baseball-what-else","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/47021\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR Through the Gears: William Byron has gas. Bristol bombs at baseball. What else?"},"content":{"rendered":"

You wanna talk symbolism? Well, here you go.<\/a><\/p>\n

William Byron led the first 67 laps of Sunday’s Iowa Corn 350<\/a>, then hung around during the rest of Stage 1 before disappearing from the top 10 at the end of Stage 2.<\/p>\n

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On Lap 277, he\u2019d found his way back to the lead. <\/a>And he stayed there for the final 74 laps. That\u2019s right, he led the first 67 and the final 74 laps of the 350-lap affair.<\/p>\n

That quality book-ending of a Sunday came during a year when he won the season\u2019s first race and, now, its most recent.\u00a0In between he alternated between bad luck and bad efforts, often resulting in bad results.<\/p>\n

\"Six<\/p>\n

Six months after winning the Daytona 500, William Byron finally collected another checkered flag Sunday in Iowa.<\/p>\n

To get it done Sunday, he needed to get great gas mileage, which he did, and the credit is going to the rash of cautions over the final third (or so) of the race \u2014 40 of the final 128 laps were run at fuel-saving caution speed.<\/p>\n

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I literally put pen to napkin, did some math involving NASCAR’s 18-gallon tanks and the fact Byron ran the last 144 laps (126 miles on that track) getting seven miles per gallon. Sounds horrible to you, but that’s practically Prius mileage for a stock-car racer.<\/p>\n

In older times, the tech sleuths would\u2019ve been X-raying Byron\u2019s No. 24 Chevy from stem to stern in search of hidden fuel lines. Now, they just write it off to the marvels of modern mechanical engineering. But they still examine, you know, just in case.<\/p>\n

They certainly won\u2019t credit the ethanol, in spite of the long-running public-relations campaign. Yes, we\u2019ll get to that, and more, as we grab a gear, point it straight between two corn rows, and sadly leave the heartland behind.<\/p>\n

\"It's<\/p>\n

It’s not a New Hampshire lobster, but Iowa corn still tastes good for the race winner.<\/p>\n

First Gear: When 7 mpg is a good thing<\/p>\n

Byron\u2019s crew chief, Rudy Fugle, made an odd request late Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSlow down,\u201d basically. Byron had enough of a lead, but might not have had enough Sunoco in the tank. Along with the unfamiliar request, there was an on-track sight bordering on comical.<\/p>\n

Shane van Gisbergen and Cody Ware, after falling a lap down to Byron, suddenly had him in their laps.<\/p>\n

As Byron slowed, he was backing up to the two lapped drivers, who both did the right thing: They slowed, too, not wanting to make any sudden moves that might affect Byron negatively and turn them into heels.<\/p>\n

Every little bit of anchor helped Byron, who made it to the checkers and a burnout and there\u2019s an angle to this you probably hadn\u2019t considered.<\/p>\n

The full name of Sunday\u2019s race is actually the Iowa Corn 350 Powered by Ethanol. Do your own research on how Iowa\u2019s corn farmers benefit from ethanol\u2019s political advantages, but for our purposes, consider this: According to \u201cthose who know such things,\u201d gasoline that includes a 15% mix of ethanol (such as NASCAR\u2019s Sunoco racing fuel) provides 5% less energy, which leads to ever-so-slightly lower fuel mileage.<\/p>\n

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There are lists of pros and cons regarding ethanol, and enough cons that you see the occasional fillin\u2019 station with non-ethanol pumps. The ethanol-free gas costs more per gallon, but it\u2019s the go-to fuel for many folks who heavily rely on their internally combusted engines \u2014 \u201cstraight, no chaser,\u201d they say.<\/p>\n

Second Gear: William Byron makes a point, and points<\/p>\n

When did this turn into one of Smokey Yunick\u2019s old \u201cTrack Tech\u201d columns in Circle Track?<\/p>\n

Where were we?<\/p>\n

Ah, William Byron. Billy the Kid has also regained the lead in the regular-season point standings, and that\u2019s important because the leader at the 26-race mark earns 15 bonus points heading to the playoffs. And a neat trophy, by the way.<\/p>\n

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With three races left, he\u2019s 18 points up on Chase Elliott and enjoys bigger cushions on third-place Kyle Larson (45) and fourth-place Denny Hamlin (51). Through 23 races last year, the point spread among the top four was just 21.<\/p>\n

With 13 different winners so far and three regular-season races remaining, it\u2019s still possible to get to 16 winners (that\u2019s what we call math!).<\/p>\n

Yeah, possible, you\u2019re saying, but not likely. Probably not very likely, but not quite as unlikely as you might think, considering the next three weeks include a road course (AJ Allmendinger?) and the crapshoot at Daytona (Michael McDowell or Austin Dillon?).<\/p>\n

Throw in a Richmond win, in two weeks, for a Tyler Reddick, Alex Bowman or some other capable driver, and we might hit 16 for the first time in 12 years of this current playoff format.<\/p>\n

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Third Gear: Bristol and baseball a bad combo<\/p>\n

You reckon they\u2019re eager to play another ballgame at Bristol Motor Speedway?<\/p>\n

Man, what a gauntlet of hurdles for that Braves-Reds game. And not all of them were weather-related. Yes, it would\u2019ve been worse if they didn\u2019t have a Sunday afternoon rain date, which was put in play after Saturday night was washed out.<\/p>\n

But if you read the fan reviews, boy oh boy, some boxes weren\u2019t properly checked ahead of time. Getting to and from the speedway\u2019s \u201cstadium seating\u201d wasn\u2019t without issues, and running out of certain food staples? That\u2019s a tough look.<\/p>\n

Some liked it.<\/p>\n

Some didn’t.<\/p>\n

The motive was noble and frankly worth the effort. They wanted to get MLB\u2019s all-time largest crowd, but along the way may not have prepared for such. Some NHL brass was there to gauge the possibility of staging one of hockey\u2019s annual outdoor games at the track.<\/p>\n

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Not sure of their reaction, but Saturday night\u2019s infield looked like it\u2019d been spritzed with a Zamboni.<\/p>\n

Fourth Gear: Stewart Friesen on the mend<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that we really needed a reminder, but Stewart Friesen gave us one anyway: Racing can be dangerous at times.<\/p>\n

The NASCAR Truck Series racer was badly injured last week while moonlighting at a dirt-racing event in his native Canada. Friesen was driving a big-block dirt modified in the \u201cKing of the North\u201d feature when he flipped wildly and was then crashed into by another car that had yet to slow.<\/p>\n

Here’s a look. Buckle up.<\/p>\n

You know how you sometimes hear about a pelvic fracture in the more violent highway wrecks? Well, Friesen suffered multiple fractures to his pelvis, along with a badly fractured leg. The only way you can call him lucky is to go watch that wreck \u2014 that\u2019s when you know it could\u2019ve been even worse.<\/p>\n

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Sometimes you hear or read about a Cup Series racer lobbying his team owner for permission to add some dirt-track sprint racing to his list of hobbies. Team owners often say no, yet sometimes oblige. Friesen\u2019s wreck illustrates why it\u2019s not an easy decision.<\/p>\n

While safety in big-league stock-car racing has evolved greatly this century, there\u2019s not as much meat on the bones of those modifieds. Safety headway has been made, which could explain Friesen\u2019s clean CT scans on his head, neck and spine. But those cars aren\u2019t bullet-proof.<\/p>\n

By the way, word came over the weekend that Friesen had successful surgeries on both his pelvis and leg. Next up comes the healing and a slow-roll of physical therapy.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Email Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com<\/p>\n

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This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR gas bubble holds for William Byron; wins Iowa race by slowing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You wanna talk symbolism? Well, here you go. William Byron led the first 67 laps of Sunday’s Iowa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82,20028,4382],"class_list":{"0":"post-47021","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-stewart-friesen","13":"tag-william-byron"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}