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DOVER, Del. – Somewhere out there, there’s a 19-year-old still accepting a weekly allowance from his parents.
At Dover International Speedway on Saturday, 19-year-old William Byron raced his way to a $100,000 bonus.
The JR Motorsports driver’s sixth-place finish in the OneMain Financial 200 at the Monster Mile propelled him to the fourth and final XFINITY Series Dash 4 Cash prize, earning himself a cool hundred grand in the process. Thankfully, Byron has a good head on his shoulders and has no immediate plans to visit the Dover Downs casino located on site, but instead joked it could buy “a good education.”
“I don’t know (what my plans are for the money),” Byron said following the race. “It’s definitely a good thing for our race team. Good run for us; we needed that. Just really proud of all the guys on the JRM team and hopefully this is something we can keep building on.”
Byron was the highest-qualifying Dash 4 Cash driver in the final stage, topping a final group of qualifiers that included teammate and points leader Elliott Sadler along with Darrell Wallace Jr. and Brennan Poole.
RELATED: XFINITY Series standings | Byron’s career stats
The young driver set the Camping World Truck Series on fire in 2016, turning heads on his way to a series-record seven wins in 23 races by a rookie. While still winless this year, his XFINITY Series career got off to a stellar start through the season’s first six races with an average finish of 7.67.
Things have stalled a bit since, with the next four seeing a pair of finishes 30th or worse and zero top 10s. He’s hoping Saturday’s finish and earning the Dash 4 Cash prize — which he deemed “for sure the highlight” of his XFINITY career thus far — are signs that his team is starting to put things together to perform.
“To see the execution in the race and get there at the end … I know we got off cycle there and didn’t necessarily get the finish we wanted, but we were still able to charge up through there on new tires and that was exciting. It was fun to race with Elliott and Justin (Allgaier) and everyone that was battling for it,” Byron said.
JRM won three of four Dash 4 Cash prizes, with Allgaier taking Phoenix and Richmond, sandwiched by Richard Childress Racing’s Daniel Hemric taking Bristol.
“For JRM, I think it just shows the strength of our team to execute. I think we keep building and keep getting more speed. We’re executing really well in the race and our teammates are as well. That’s helping everyone get these Dash 4 Cashes and we’ll just keep building on that.”