Editor’s Note: This story has been updated following Thursday’s Duel at Daytona to reflect Byron’s result in the qualifying race.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — William Byron has a chance to do something no other driver has done in NASCAR history: win three consecutive Daytona 500s.
Byron is one of only five drivers in the event’s 67-year history to win it in back-to-back years, joining Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough, Sterling Marlin and Denny Hamlin.
On Sunday at 1:30 p.m. ET (FOX), Byron will try his hand at creating history in the NASCAR Cup Series season opener.
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Byron, 28, says he isn’t thinking about what lies ahead of him too much. But he knows what’s at stake and what a third straight victory in the “Great American Race” would mean to him.
“Obviously that’s the goal,” Byron said during Wednesday’s Daytona 500 Media Day. “I get reminders of the previous races, whether I see just the videos or whatnot. Yeah, it’s great career-defining moments that we’ve had. It’s awesome. It’s special. But I don’t really think ahead too much. I just think about what it’s going to take in these next couple days leading up to it.”
Byron admitted his surprise that no other driver has ever accomplished the feat, a stat made more jarring when considering Petty scored a record seven Daytona 500 wins. But even in more modern-era drafting styles of the last 25 years, when the leader could perhaps dictate the moves of cars behind, never did anyone score the three-peat.
“I’m a little surprised that there wasn’t a run by somebody like a Dale Jr. or something,” Byron said. “He and his team had a pretty good hold on what it took to be competitive, and he made great decisions. It just shows how hard this race is and how much pressure there is.”
The history at hand was top of mind for crew chief Rudy Fugle in a Jan. 24 interview at Hendrick Motorsports. In 2025, Fugle led Byron and the No. 24 team to the regular-season title after 26 races. That began with their second Daytona 500 win together.
“To have an opportunity to do something that nobody ever has done before in the history of NASCAR is huge,” Fugle said. “So we definitely are making sure that we’re preparing correctly, getting the cars and the parts going. I think it’s a little easier because most of the company recognizes we have a chance to do something never done before, even in a place with as much excellence as Hendrick Motorsports. So we just really want to try to help all those things go. At Daytona, there’s a lot of things out of our control. But what we can control, we want to have all those T’s crossed and I’s dotted.”
What has made Byron most effective in recent superspeedway endeavors, he says, are quick-thinking decisions that land correctly in addition to the right eyes in the sky and the hands working under Fugle’s direction.
“I do feel like I have a good instinct for making good decisions on the track,” Byron said. “I have a great spotter in Branden (Lines) that guides me well and a really good team with a well-prepared car that handles well and does all the things I want it to do. I think it’s just a combination of all those things and kind of just having a good overall feel for it.”
There is a certain anticipation Byron has felt festering through the offseason. After contending for the Cup Series championship three months ago at Phoenix Raceway, Byron’s urge to get back behind the wheel grew antsy in the cold winter months. No better way to cure that ill than by climbing back behind the wheel this week at Daytona.
“I feel really excited. I’m ready to get racing again,” Byron said. “I feel like I had a great offseason, but I found myself in the offseason just feeling like I actually wanted to get back in the car. I wanted to experience those emotions again. I kind of missed that. There’s a lot of aspects I didn’t miss, but the aspect of racing and being in the car with my guys and everything, that I really missed as the offseason went on.”
A new factor for the No. 24 team in pursuit of history will be a new body for the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 this year. New features include a larger hood dome, revisions to the front grille and redefined rocker panels from previous seasons. And while those changes may ultimately be subtle, they make last year’s notes slightly less reliable.
“Aerodynamics are complex, so through wind-tunnel testing and GM and all those things, we have a basic idea of what to expect for the car by itself,” Fugle said. “So the cars will do completely different things at different ride heights that we haven’t even got to see yet in the wind tunnel, just because of what happens with slightly different aero factors in each configuration of where you race it. And then, more importantly, in the draft and getting pushed and pushing and sucking up. So I expect to learn — you’ll never stop learning on the body. We were learning at the end of last year on the old body for three years. But this body, I expect to learn all year long for sure in pretty big chunks.”
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Byron hoped to have a classroom session before his first time in the draft during Thursday night’s Duel at Daytona, the twin 150-mile qualifying races that will set the starting lineup for the Daytona 500. Instead, Byron wound up in the first of two 60-lap dashes and was one of the first Chevy drivers to learn how the new car works in the drafting pack.
“Selfishly, I think if I could be in the second Duel, it would be great to get a visual for what that looks like — how they’re doing it in the first Duel, then execute that or try it myself in the second,” Byron said. “Yeah, I think (the new body is) an unknown, for sure. It looks a lot better on paper. It looks like it’s going to be an advantage, possibly, or something we haven’t had in the past. Hopefully that’s the case.”
Unfortunately, his learning was cut short at Lap 57 of the qualifying race. When leader Bubba Wallace was sent spinning, Chris Buescher received contact that turned him hard into Byron’s door. The pair nearly saved their cars, but Buescher lost control and spun into the side of Byron’s car, simultaneously squeezing the No. 24 Chevrolet into the SAFER barrier. The No. 24 team confirmed Thursday evening it will go to a backup car for Sunday’s race and start from the rear.
That doesn’t mean all is lost, though. Byron also started the 2024 Daytona 500 with a backup car after a crash in that year’s Duel. He ended that weekend in Victory Lane.
“We’ve won this race with a backup car, so I’m not super worried about that aspect,” Byron said. “But it does suck that you put a lot of work into the primary and you don’t get to race it. … Stinks to start in the back on Sunday and not get the points tonight, but we’ll just move on.”
That Byron has won each of the last two runnings of the “Great American Race” comes as a notable twist to his previous Daytona results. His finishing rate at the 2.5-mile behemoth is a mere 50% — eight DNFs in 16 total Daytona starts, with four of those crash-outs coming in the Daytona 500. That also includes a stretch of four consecutive wrecks that knocked him out of the race early.
It seems that dismal stretch has taken a turn for the better. Since the summer race in 2023, Byron has finished four of the last five Daytona races with two wins and three top 10s in that span.
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“It just feels like I’ve been, at this track in particular, able to have some things go my way and also make good decisions in those moments that I had opportunities,” Byron said. “It’s a mix of that — like being in the right place — and then having those chances to make good decisions. I feel like, for a while, it was a joke. I couldn’t finish a race here. My first six years, I couldn’t finish the race, but I was always in the mix. I don’t know. I think it’s kind of finally tipped the other way.”
Winning two consecutive Daytona 500s already proves he’s trending in the right direction. The question now is whether fortune will favor him for a third consecutive year in the “Great American Race.”
