William Byron, it turns out, has finally figured out how to coast on fumes and faith. After twice this season coming up short thanks to fuel strategy that looked like it was planned by a guy guessing at gas mileage in a blackout, the Hendrick Motorsports driver managed to stretch his fuel just far enough Sunday at Iowa Speedway—winning the gamble, and the race, with nothing but air and adrenaline left in the cell.
One week ago, Byron was running third at Indy when his Chevy coughed, sputtered, and quit like a teenager asked to mow the lawn. Before that? He led the most laps in Michigan and still ran dry. But this time, his No. 24 car managed to sip fuel like a Victorian lady at afternoon tea, just long enough to seal his second win of the season—and first since the Daytona 500.
“Man, how about that for some fuel mileage?” Byron said. “We’ve had our fair share of things not go our way with fuel mileage, and just super thankful for Rudy (Fugle, crew chief), all these guys, all the engineers, all the engineers back at the shop. Just this whole race team, we’ve been through a lot this year. It’s been a lot of growing pains. It’s been tough on us. But it feels really good today to get a win.”
And he earned it the hard way—after a chaotic day that included 12 cautions, a stack of shredded strategies, and what felt like an entire year’s worth of yellow flags. Byron led a race-high 141 laps, pitted on Lap 206, and then played the world’s slowest game of “can we make it?” for the final 60-plus laps. Spoiler alert: He did.
Behind him, Chase Briscoe—who keeps starting on pole like it’s some kind of hobby—was left to wonder what might’ve been after finishing second with 81 laps led.
“There at the end, I was running William down,” Briscoe said. “I thought I was really in the catbird seat there and I just got there and kind of stalled out…as soon as I got there, I just kind of died.”
No one wore a more pained expression than Brad Keselowski, who swept both stages, led 68 laps (more than he’s managed all year), and had more fuel than the two guys ahead of him. Still, he finished third, which is about as satisfying as lukewarm coffee.
“Just the way the yellows fell,” Keselowski said. “We had so many yellows there in Stage 3 that it got the 24 and the 19 to where they could make it on fuel pitting way outside the window, and we just couldn’t get back by them.”
Keselowski Comes Close, but Iowa Adds One More to the Winless Tally
Ryan Blaney made a too-late charge to finish fourth, while Keselowski’s RFK employee and teammate Ryan Preece scored fifth thanks to a savvy early call to stay out when he thought he might possibly have a loose wheel. Not exactly glamorous, but effective.
Byron owned the first stage after swiping the lead from Briscoe before the field even finished tuning their radios. But it wasn’t a cruise—Keselowski had clawed to second by Lap 25 and was putting Byron under pressure by Lap 36. Noah Gragson tried desperately to stay on the lead lap, which turned the front-running battle into the kind of prime-time drama you usually need a subscription for.
It was all going fine for Byron until two laps left in the stage, when he got loose and Keselowski pounced, with Austin Cindric following him through. That marked Keselowski’s first stage win of the year.
Stage 2 opened with Briscoe once again leading after a stellar pit stop, but it started to look like Brad’s day. He grabbed the lead during green flag stops and then got the gift of all gifts when Shane van Gisbergen did a solo pirouette to bring out the first caution for an incident.
Blaney edged Keselowski off pit road, and chaos ensued behind them like someone kicked a hornet’s nest. A solo spin from Cody Ware on Lap 180 restarted the caution parade. Keselowski muscled back to the lead by Lap 188, and with five to go in the stage, the Ford camp looked locked in. Then Todd Gilliland and Ty Dillon got into a bit of synchronized sliding, and Hocevar added a late spin for good measure.
No matter—Keselowski swept both stages for the first time in six years. Things were looking up.
But this is 2025 NASCAR, where plans go to die and fuel windows are written in disappearing ink.
The final stage kicked off with a flurry—Denny Hamlin spun four-wide on Lap 221 and Zane Smith wall-scraped on Lap 228. Keselowski, seeing the writing on the fuel tank, pitted under caution… and watched most of the field stay out. He restarted 16th while Blaney took over up front.
A Relaxed Bubba Wallace Is Apparently a Dangerous Bubba Wallace at Least to the Rest of the Field
Then came more chaos: Briscoe got wiggly and tagged Erik Jones, triggering a stack-up that ended Bubba Wallace’s bid for a clean car. Blaney and a gaggle of others pitted, trying to stretch fuel to the bitter end.
Cindric led them back to green on Lap 250. Briscoe—again—got loose, and the result was another two-car spin. Somewhere, someone was already drawing up a bracket for “Spin of the Race.”
SVG went for another slide on Lap 263, and suddenly Chase Elliott was leading for the first time all day. Under the caution when asked if he wanted to pit, Keselowski, grumpy and still fast, told crew chief Jeremy Bullins, “No offense Jeremy, but I don’t want to see you the rest of today.”
Ty Dillon spun again on Lap 272. And then, as if the race didn’t already feel like the world’s loudest fuel economy run, Byron’s crew decided he might—might—have just enough to make it.
The final caution came courtesy of a flying window panel off Todd Gilliland’s car. Elliott pitted. Byron stayed out.
And somehow, someway, Byron made it stick.
Wallace, despite mangling a toe link earlier, finished sixth. Bowman grabbed seventh, Hocevar rebounded to eighth, and Joey Logano and Austin Dillon rounded out the top 10.
For Byron, it was a day where the strategy didn’t fall apart, the fuel didn’t run out, and nobody stole it from him in the final 50 feet. In this sport, that counts as everything going right.
“I think our confidence in each other never wavered,” Byron said. “I feel like our speed has been better than it’s ever been, and that’s a big reason why we stay confident. I feel like every week we work really hard together and show up prepared, show up fast, and yeah, we needed just one to go our way, and today it did.
“Honestly, they haven’t, but today it did.”
Next up: Watkins Glen. A road course. Chris Buescher won it last year, and at this rate, we can probably expect another fuel mileage drama starring at least one guy whose calculator batteries are still dead.
RACE RESULTS
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour 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, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
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