The O’Reilly 253 at the Daytona International Speedway Road Course was a day that William Byron would love to forget. Byron finished in 33rd place, one lap down with zero laps led, after a promising day turned sour.
As a result of NASCAR’s metric-based qualifying, Byron faced an uphill battle as he began the race in 22nd. Byron worked his way up as high as 13th during stage one, but crew chief Rudy Fugle elected to play the long game, and the result was a 23rd-place finish in stage one.
Stage two was a bit more promising for Byron. Byron was able to hold off the cars with fresh tires and was scored 11th when a caution came out on lap 28 for an accident involving the No. 42 of Ross Chastain and the No. 12 of Ryan Blaney.
Byron tore through the field after the restart, finishing stage two in seventh place, and boosted by the confidence gained by his great stage two run, Byron went on another tear for the final stage. Byron fought his way back into the back end of the top 10, but with 16 laps to go, a controversial caution was called for sprinkles in the south end of the race track.
Shortly after the restart, another caution and, therefore, another restart occurred – which spelled the beginning of the end for Byron’s day. The No. 19 car of Martin Truex Jr. spun in the middle of the track in turn one, Byron was forced to go way off track to avoid hitting the car, and he dropped to 28th.
Things went from bad to worse when Byron missed the chicane and was forced to do a stop-and-go, dropping him all the way to 33rd. After some more resilient driving brought him up to 25th, Byron lost his brakes with two laps to go. As if that was not enough, Byron cut a tire on the final lap, limping home in 33rd.
William Byron will race again Sunday, Feb. 28, in the Dixie Vodka 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Florida, at 3:30 p.m. on FOX. Byron has historically struggled at Homestead, but it does house one good memory for Byron from when he clinched the 2017 NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship that November.
Joshua Lipowski is a Sports Reporter and host of the “Further Than The Cheap Seats” podcast. Follow him on Instagram at @j_lipowski23.