Byron thinks he still has something to prove

F99MgPka4AAG47h — (Greg Engle, CupScene.com)

There’s a residue of disquiet in William Byron that a NASCAR Cup Series championship would do a lot to alleviate.

The driver of the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet took an unconventional path to NASCAR’s foremost division. Unlike fellow Championship 4 contenders Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell, Byron didn’t grow up racing high-horsepower cars on dirt.

Unlike Ryan Blaney, whom he’ll also fight for the series title on Sunday, Byron didn’t excel in Super Late Models or ARCA cars.

While his three opponents were honing their skills in real machines, Byron was racing in the virtual world, getting better and better at iRacing. In his teens, Byron finally brought his talents to terra firma, but he still thinks there are those who look askance at his path to the big time.

“I feel like the odds are stacked against me—the iRacing kid that comes in and doesn’t know how to drive real cars and hasn’t ever raced till he was 15,” Byron said on Thursday during Championship 4 Media Day. “I feel like the odds were against me to have this kind of success when I came in the sport, and I got a lot of criticism because of how I came in.”

But the criticism should subside if Byron prevails in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship race (3 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

“I think it will be kind of a ‘prove it’ moment to all those critics,” Byron said.

“I felt like I had a naturally ability to drive, and when I got into real cars, it showed. At the same time, when I worked through the ranks, people in the late model ranks were telling me, ‘Man, he’s not earned it, or he’s not done it the way we’ve done it,’ worked in the shop of all those things. I just kept putting my head down and working and trying to get to this level.”

When Byron landed his full-time ride with Hendrick in 2018 as a 20-year-old, he was at the bottom of the Cup Series pecking order.

“It’s kind of funny,” he said, “because when I came into the Cup Series, it was the old versus new, and the old guys ruled, with (Kevin) Harvick and Jimmie (Johnson), and those guys were dominating races—and (Martin) Truex. So the younger guys kind of joked that NASCAR promoted us so much—people were laughing at it.

“But we’re here now. It’s cool. It’s all the guys I grew up racing against. I think all these guys are going to win multiple races a year for the next few years.”