William Byron scored the first top-10 finish of his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career in Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.
The Hendrick Motorsports rookie came from the rear of the field after problems earlier in the weekend to score the impressive finish.
“It was really good for us to get a top 10,” Byron said. “We had a good car. Once the sun came out we weren’t quite as good, I don’t think, but starting in the back this was definitely a good day for us. We had a lot of adversity and kept having to go to the back. So, it’s good to come back from that and get a top 10. It feels awesome. It feels great to get a top 10. It obviously takes a lot of things to happen.”
Last year’s Xfinity Series champion continues to learn his way through a freshman Cup Series season and this weekend at Texas added to the knowledge and experience.
“We didn’t quite have the speed we wanted to,” Byron said of his weekend. “We were really good in practice but I think some of our weaknesses showed up when the rubber laid down on the track a little bit on the bottom groove.
“Overall it was a pretty good day and we can definitely build on this. Repaves are really treacherous and the restarts were so sketchy. I learned a couple of things with adjustments in the car to help for that and overall I thought that green flag entries were good. Green flag stops, the guys did a good job..
So Byron will take the lessons learned and what he hopes momentum from Texas and move on to Bristol next week.
“Overall, I thought it was pretty good,” he said. “So, it was a pretty solid day. We had a ton of things happen but I thought that we ended-up about where we should have.”
