William Byron scored an impressive runner-up finish in Sunday’s First Data 500 at Martinsville Speedway.
Byron matched his career best finish when he came home second to Martin Truex Jr.
The Hendrick Motorsports driver did his best to get around Truex Jr. in a series of closing laps restarts but could not get by and settled for the second place run.
“I don’t know, he was really strong,” Byron said when asked about passing Truex Jr. “I could work my brake bias a little bit in the car and gain a little bit, and then I’d get to him and I’d heat him up a lot and then kind of fall back. I don’t really know. He was super strong. Our car bounced a little bit on the short run, which was tough to kind of get around. But overall it was a really good day.
“This isn’t a place that I’ve loved coming to, and it just clicked this weekend, the things we did with the car going into qualifying and then obviously our race. Super excited, but second is not super fun, either. We’ll try to get one spot better next time.”
There were a number of opportunities for Byron to potentially get to Truex Jr.’s rear bumper. If he had, Byron said he would have not had a problem getting physical in pursuit of career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series win number one.
“Yeah, I mean, whatever it takes,” Byron said. “I wouldn’t race him dirty, but I’m really hungry for my first win, so it’s going to whatever it takes. But he ran such a good race. I think he would have been able to drag the brake and do all he could to keep me behind him anyway. Close.”
