William Byron thinks Iowa win can
build momentum for NASCAR's playoffs
[August 05, 2025]
By JOHN BOHNENKAMP
NEWTON, Iowa (AP) — William Byron was already locked into the NASCAR
Cup Series playoffs and was second in the regular-season point
standings heading into Sunday’s race at Iowa Speedway.
Still, Byron didn’t like how things were going heading into the
closing stretch of the regular season.
Byron had five finishes of 27th or worse in the last eight races,
and coming to a track where he has had success in the past, he
wanted to regain some confidence with the playoffs approaching.
“I think we’ve been fast every weekend,” Byron said. “I mean, I
can’t think of a week when we’ve been slow, it’s just the results
haven’t come together. And it was starting to wear on us a little
bit and starting to create some kind of, ‘What’s going to happen
next?’”
What happened next, though, was Byron getting his second win of the
season on Sunday, gambling on fuel mileage for a win that he thought
had changed the momentum of his season.
Byron went the last 144 laps of the 350-lap race without a stop, and
a third stage filled with caution flags helped him conserve enough
fuel to get to the finish.
He left Iowa Speedway, where he has now won in all three of NASCAR’s
series, with an 18-point lead over Hendrick Motorsports teammate
Chase Elliott for the regular-season title.
“This is going to kind of put the pendulum the other way,” Byron
said.
Byron won the season-opening Daytona 500, and has eight top-10
finishes this season, including three second-place finishes. But he
had a 37th-place finish at Atlanta, a 40th-place finish at the
Chicago street race, and 31st-place finish at Dover. He was 16th
last week at Indianapolis, when he had to make a late pit stop for
fuel.
Surviving to win this one is something that crew chief Rudy Fugle
expected.
“He’s an awesome driver,” Fugle said. “I think he’s the best driver,
all-around, in the field right now. He’s mine, and I should say
that. But I really think he’s maturing and getting the experience to
show that off. He’s very well-diversified, and then he’s a fighter.
He’s got a hard line and fights through anything. There’s no quit in
him.”
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William Byron celebrates after winning a NASCAR Cup Series auto
race, Sunday, Aug. 3, 2025, at Iowa Speedway in Newton, Iowa. (AP
Photo/Bryon Houlgrave)
Byron had fuel-mileage issues late at Michigan, and
again last week at Indianapolis. Even with that, Fugle knew he could
still gamble with his driver.
“Those are things that he’s gotten better as well over the years,
rolling with the punches and what happens next,” Fugle said. “And
next thing you know, you’re leading and you get a chance to win.”
Byron admitted he was nervous as the laps dwindled on Sunday.
“I knew what to expect,” he said. “I knew what to look for, and all
that in terms of if I ran out of fuel. But I was just thinking about
preserving as much as I could, doing a lot of different things in
the car, lifting early and just not using a lot of throttle
percentage. So just the guys did a really good job coaching me on
what to do.”
Byron thought there was a little fuel left in the tank at the end.
“I felt like if I could get off of (turn) four, come into the white
(flag), I could win the race,” he said. “So that’s kind of what was
in my head. And that was mostly true. When I did the burnout, at the
tail end of the burnout, I had the fuel pressure come up. So I don’t
know how many laps that would have been.”
Now, Byron said, he has new fuel to get to the playoffs.
“I really feel like we needed to win a race like this, we deserve to
win a race based on how we’ve grown all year, and it just wasn’t
happening,” Byron said. “It’s is just a big relief for us to have
one kind of go our way. We’ve just been running so well this year, I
feel like this is going to be a big momentum boost for our team.”
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