SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Indianapolis Motor Speedway has thrown William Byron plenty of curves ever since the road-course layout was introduced to NASCAR Cup Series competition. The latest hazard has the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet driver operating at a deficit before the green flag falls.
Byron will serve a pass-through penalty on Indy’s long pit road after the start of Sunday’s Verizon 200 at the Brickyard (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, IMS Radio, SiriusXM, NBC Sports App) after his car failed Friday’s pre-qualifying inspection three times. Byron was not permitted to qualify Saturday, and he’ll start last in the 39-car field — short his car chief and pit-stall selection.
The notification reached the 25-year-old driver as he was trying to satisfy his hunger.
“I was really excited to get here to the track and then got that message and had to regroup,” Byron said. “I was actually going to get some Jimmy John’s, so I was going through the drive-thru and wasn’t the happiest customer. But it is what it is. It’s life and things happen, and we move on.”
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Byron was actually the pole winner for the Cup Series’ first race on the Indy road-course circuit back in 2021. Things have gone south since. His race results here the last two times out have been sub-30th finishes, both abbreviated by crashes, and last year’s race weekend had an ominous start with the No. 24 team’s hauler catching fire on load-in day, forcing the crew to scramble before practice and qualifying.
Byron found a slight silver lining with this year’s version of misfortune, noting how he’ll likely be running alone on the track, outside of the main pack after serving his penalty. “I think it’d be kind of peaceful, right? I mean, just feels like I’m in the lead, but I’m not,” he said with a laugh, adding that his team will do its best to adjust.
“It’s certainly not the circumstances that we wanted to have,” said Byron, who was ninth on Saturday’s practice speed chart. “We wanted to come in here, have a solid practice, qualifying, go into the race, but it is what’s happened and it’s unfortunate and we just have to try to be as efficient as we can to start the race, try to work our way through that, not make any mistakes on the on the pass-through, make sure we don’t speed on pit road or anything like that. Then I think the strategy and the overall pace of our car has been good, so we’ve just got to work the strategy to suit the pace of our car. … So, felt good about our car in practice. And like I said, it stinks the circumstances, but it’s what we got.”
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The big-picture circumstances outside of the race weekend are more positive, as Byron continues to lead the Cup Series with four wins this season. It’s not the test of resilience that his team wanted, but Byron says he’s eager to see how the No. 24 group rebounds.
“I think our competitors look at us to see what we’re going to do in these situations. So I think it’s great. The spotlight’s on,” Byron said. “We’re going to go out there and try to overcome the adversity as best we can. I’m sure those guys, if we show up in the top five late, they’re probably going to be like, ‘How did they do that?’ “