William Byron: “It was rough. There’s no doubt about it, it was a rough weekend, but we definitely learned a lot from it.”
William Byron is in the beginning up his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series debut. The 2017 NASCAR Xfinity Series welcomed a new challenge in the highest level of asphalt stock car racing.
It’s been hard fought season so far. But, those fights are for 20th position in the field.
Byron is currently juggling a new car, a new series and his Liberty University degree. The 20-year-old is still in school.
In 2018, William Byron has a best finish of 18th which came at Atlanta Motor Speedway. His results so far: 23rd (Daytona); 18th (Atlanta); 27th (Las Vegas)
He’s never worked harder for 20th position.
“Yeah, especially with what I fought in the beginning of the race,” Byron told NASCAR.com at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “It was rough. There’s no doubt about it, it was a rough weekend, but we definitely learned a lot from it.
“Just to make it 500 miles and to know what that’s going to be like and to know what I need to do to get to that point was the biggest thing for me. Once I kind of realized where we were as far as how our car handled and things like that, you just kind of reset your goals and just go from there to figure out what you can do to maximize the day.”
Last week, Kevin Harvick outran everyone, again. Byron finished 4 laps down to the race winner.
But, Byron isn’t the only one learning as he goes. Every Chevrolet team appears to be in a bit of a slump. The anomaly of Daytona 500 winner Austin Dillon, simply doesn’t count.
Chevrolet introduced a new Camaro body for the 2018 season. The teams are still learning how to make it perform. Stewart-Haas Racing didn’t jump out of the gate with a winning car. Again, excluding Daytona.
“I think that, once it clicks, it’s going to be the same as any other series,” Byron said.
“When it clicks, and you know what you need in the car, and you know how to produce that result, it doesn’t matter whether there are 30 good cars or 20 good cars. I think that once it does click for us, and once we know and we show up each week, and we’re very close to how we need to be, it’s going to start to click and rack off those successful finishes.
“But I would say there is a lot of stuff to work on. I mean, there’s the pit road stuff, the green-flag stops, the length of the races and then just learning Darrian and my guys to know what to do. I think we’re going to get there probably quicker than people expect, but there might be some rough patches here and there.”
William Byron made his NASCAR Truck Series debut in 2016. After the first two races, he found himself ranked 25th in points. A switch was flipped, Byron went on to win 7 truck series races in his debut season.
The rookie is here and he’s learning, every race.
