It was a storybook finish to the weekend, but William Byron had to fight for it. Hendrick Motorsports decided to celebrate their 40th, ruby anniversary, at Martinsville the track where they scored their first win.
On Sunday, Byron was able to make it 28 wins in total, and it was even sweeter as a Hendrick one-two-three finish, the first time a team has ever managed to do that at Martinsville.
The win was no walk in the park though. Byron started eighteenth and drove to the lead during the third stage, which went just about caution-free, with his Hendrick Motorsports teammates just behind.
However, with just a few laps to go the caution came out for John Hunter Nemechek, who suffered a brake issue that took down a tire, and forced Byron to face down the rest of the pack. That included teammates Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson, both of whom were equally hungry to score that special win.
“I just want to thank Chase for racing me clean there,” Byron said of the restart. “Could get really physical at the end. He gave me a shot, which is expected. We all finish it off.”
For Byron, the race was not about him but about the team.
“Just so proud of everyone at Hendrick Motorsports,” he said. “Grew up a big Hendrick fan. To be here for the 40th anniversary, all that goes into just this organization, all the people, it’s all about the people. Just want to thank Mr. Hendrick and Linda and everyone involved.”
Byron acknowledged that it seems just too perfect, but he said that the reason for the win wasn’t any script but rather the meticulous effort everyone at Hendrick Motorsports puts in every week.
“It’s just a lot of hard work and attention to detail,” Byron explained. When you walk in the doors at Hendrick Motorsports, it’s just fascinating how clean everything is and how nice everything is. You can go up to anybody and ask a question. There’s a real racer’s mindset, but at the same time they took me in when I was 20 years old.”
Hendrick Motorsports celebrated the anniversary by inviting hundreds of their employees out to the racetrack with their families to enjoy. Rick Hendrick called into the broadcast to share his elation afterwards with getting to deliver them a win.
“This is a special day,” the team owner said. He was unable to get to the track because he’s recovering from a knee replacement surgery.
Hendrick Motorsports Chairman Jeff Gordon, who was at the track and drove pace laps alongside Hendrick’s inaugural winner Geoff Bodine, described the win as hugely “special” for the organization, and especially for the team’s employees who came to the race – who he said numbered as many as 1500 in total.
“It’s obviously pretty surreal. I felt like I was in the car there with about 50, 60 laps to go,” he said. “There’s just so many things wrapped up in the emotions of what today meant.”
Just because it was a special weekend was no guarantee that the team would win. Gordon explained that the team executed flawlessly throughout the race to time the green-flag pitstop in the third stage.
“You can’t script it like this. I knew we had good race cars when they showed up here yesterday. But the race, the way it played out, to get that green flag stop was it. Our cars were so good on the short runs. We just needed to get that track position.”
Once they did, the Hendrick cars never surrendered it.
Behind Byron, his teammates Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott finished second and third respectively to hammer the moment home.
Larson was the most dominant driver of the day starting from the pole. He then went on to lead every lap of the first stage and take the Stage 1 win, leading 86 of 400 laps in total and lapping cars up to 26th in the process.
While he came home second, Larson said he wasn’t prepared to use up either of his teammates to get the win despite the dominating performance.
“I think we all understood what this day means to the company. We were going to race hard, but fairly, and that’s kind of what we saw,” Larson described.
Like Byron it was all about the company for Larson when he stepped out of the car.
“Yeah, just a great day for Hendrick Motorsports. It’s been a great 40 seasons for them. Really cool to have 1,500 people here from Hendrick Motorsports to celebrate,” Larson said. “Congrats to William. He did a really good job.”
For Elliott, the goal was to win for himself like any other weekend, but he wasn’t able to perform on the restart the way he would have needed to.
“We came off [Turn 4] there in the zone, I had an okay jump, but couldn’t make it stick there on the outside,” he described the restart. “Got into three and tried to root him up off the bottom and couldn’t get the power down to get up underneath him. Just couldn’t do it. Then tried to run him really hard into [Turn] 1… couldn’t make that stick either, so second or third.”
Still, third is a strong result for the No. 9 crew that failed to win at all last year and just came off a 16-race streak of failing to finish in the top-five at Richmond.
“Certainly, I think it helps. We had a shot at it, you know? A green-white checkered. Granted, if it had gone our way, we would’ve kind of backed into it. Nonetheless, I feel like…just working in a good direction.”
23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace finished fourth. He was consistently a contender for the lead, but was never able to get up to it himself.
“I know, I was trying so hard!” Wallace said. “I’d get to the leader’s back bumper too late in both stages. That’s just something for us to continue to work on and we can do better.”
Wallace said the result was a big improvement for the whole team, with teammate Tyler Reddick earning a top ten himself finishing seventh.
“Oh, wow, proud of the little buddy, didn’t see him all day” Wallace joked. “Yeah, we do a lot of things that hurt our results, there’s no doubt about it. But we’re all taking a big self-reflection moment over the last couple of months and being like, let’s get our stuff together. We know what we’re capable, it’s days like this.
“I’ll continue to take top-four finishes because eventually our name will be thrown in the winner’s circle.”
Bubba’s good friend Ryan Blaney finished fifth. The No. 12 Team Penske machine had an up-and-down day, struggling through the middle and getting better late.
Joey Logano was sixth.
After Larson’s dominant first stage, Logano’s crew chief Paul Wolfe decided to take a gamble and pit for two tires on the stage break. That gave the No. 22 the lead, and Logano held onto it with a late jump in the restart zone that put him ahead into Turn 1. When the caution came out for debris from Christopher Bell spinning after a tire went down, Logano once again got the jump on the restart.
Despite his older left-side tires, Logano was able to drive away from the field as the stage continued on until he hit lapped traffic. In dirty air, his rubber disadvantage was immediately apparent. Logano defended hard, stacking up the cars behind him, but Denny Hamlin was able to get by, ending Logano’s run of 83 laps in the lead. Logano ended up falling back to fifth, a net gain of one spot after pitting from sixth.
Denny Hamlin continued on to win Stage 2. Hamlin ended up finishing eleventh after deciding to pit on the Overtime caution, which ended up being the wrong decision when he came out of the pits tenth and fell to eleventh.
Behind Reddick, Hendrick’s fourth driver, Alex Bowman, was eighth.Ryan Preece and Chase Briscoe rounded out the top 10.
The Cup Series returns next Sunday, April 14th at Texas Motor Speedway.
Photos: NASCAR at Martinsville Speedway Sunday April 7, 2021
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