Road course work pays off for William Byron

Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron, a Sunoco Rookie of the Year contender in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, has been sharpening his road course racing skills under the tutelage of Max Papis.

Byron also worked with road course expert Ron Fellows earlier in the week at Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch in Pahrump, Nevada.

The work paid off on Saturday, when Byron qualified eighth for his first road course race in the Cup series.

“Working with Ron a little bit and then working with Max Papis has helped me a ton in my career,” Byron said. “We work every week on a karting track trying to figure things out, so it’s been fun to get better.”

“Yesterday, I really started getting my rhythm of what I needed to do better and kind of put that all together today to try to get where we need to be. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it.

It was cool.”

Byron also got additional track time in qualifying and racing in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West at Sonoma on Saturday where he started second and finished third.

Greg Engle
About Greg Engle 7421 Articles
Greg is a published award winning sportswriter who spent 23 years combined active and active reserve military service, much of that in and around the Special Operations community. Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.