April 9, 2022 | By Lee Spencer

William Byron picks up his second win of the season--and his second of the weekend at Martinsville

MARTINSVILLE, Va.—William Byron experienced delayed gratification twice in the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 at Martinsville Speedway on Saturday night.

First, a mix of rain and snow interrupted the start of the race. Then, following a dominant run where he led 205 of the final 211 laps, a late-race caution interrupted his trip to Victory Lane.

But the hindrance was worth the wait.

“Oh yeah baby, awesome,” yelled Byron over the radio after becoming the first two-time winner of 2022.“That thing was awesome, thank you pit crew.”

Byron, who won the truck race on Thursday, picked up his second grandfather clock of the weekend by holding off Joey Logano in overtime.

“It feels awesome,” said Byron, who scored his first win of 2022 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. “I knew when that last caution came out we were probably—I thought everyone behind us would pit, and luckily we stayed out. We were aggressive; we felt like we could re-fire on the tires and be okay, and you've got one of the most aggressive guys behind you in Logano.

“I chattered the tires in 3 and 4 and kind of left the bottom open but was able to block my exits and get a good drive off.”

Logano finished .303-seconds behind Byron. Austin Dillon finished third followed by Ryan Blaney and Ross Chastain, who bumped Kurt Busch out of the way for fifth-place. Busch held on for sixth with Kyle Busch, Aric Almirola, Chase Briscoe and pole sitter Chase Elliott rounding out the top 10.

Elliott led the first 185 laps en route to very uneventful Stage 1 and 2 wins. Byron took the lead out of the pits under caution and led the next 118 laps.

But the second stage pit stop proved costly for Cole Custer when the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing team lost control of his tire in the pits on Lap184. Custer entered the pits fifth, but hit the tire and after a penalty dropped to 22nd. He was lapped by Byron 80 circuits later after running in the top five for much of the first half of the race.

Three of the top contenders in Saturday night’s contest were bit during the wave of green-flag pit stops. Martin Truex Jr., pitted on Lap 291 only to have a tire go down four laps later. He dropped to 27th. Christopher Bell, who pitted from 12th on Lap 294, received a penalty for his crew going over the wall too soon. He also fell a lap down. Three laps later, Kyle Larson was busted for speeding while running 10th. He dropped to 21st, one lap down.

Byron held serve until Lap 303 during green-flag pit stops. He cycled to the front on Lap 309—two laps before Denny Hamlin stalled on the front stretch to trigger the third caution. Hamlin, who won last week at Richmond and is a five-time Martinsville victor, was lapped by Elliott after 76 circuits while running 24th. Byron put the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota down a second lap on Lap 275.

The race returned to green on Lap 321 with Byron in command and Logano second. Dillon passed Logano for second but couldn’t catch Byron until NASCAR called a caution for Todd Gilliland scraping the wall in Turn 4 with five laps remaining.

“Well, green-white-checkered,” crew chief Rudy Fugle told Byron who remained on the track. Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, Erik Jones, Alex Bowman, Brad Keselowski and Chris Buescher elected to pit.

Byron led the field to green followed by Logano, Dillon, Blaney Kurt Busch, Chastain, Almirola, Elliott, Briscoe and Tyler Reddick. With a solid launch, Byron fought to the finish and dedicated his fourth career win to his mother.

“This one is for my mom. This same weekend last year she had kind of a mini-stroke and was diagnosed with brain cancer. It means a lot to have her here, and it's been a crazy year, but she's doing great, and thanks, everybody, for the support. I kind of felt like she was riding in there with me. It's cool to have her here, and I'm definitely going to enjoy this one.”

The new car’s debut at Martinsville produced just five lead changes—the fewest since four in1997 when Jeff Gordon led 431 of 500 laps at the track for the win. Saturday’s contest was cut by 100 laps.  For Byron, the milestone marked Hendrick Motorsports accumulating more than 10,000 laps led at the track and the organization’s 27th win.

Elliott also regained the points lead by three over Blaney.

Logano’s second-place run was his best result of the season. However, his winless streak now extends to 37 races.

“It was a good race down to the end,” said Logano who moved up to fourth in the standings. “Really hard to pass. I feel like if I had a better restart the restart before that —I think I chose the wrong lane and got the 3 in front of me and just got stuck behind him, couldn't pass him. Maybe I could have had something for the 4 in that long haul if not.

“But just that final restart there, had a front row. That's what you can ask for. Got cleared to second, and Willy kind of messed up off of 4 and let me get to him, and he did a really good job of brake checking into third, right, which is a good job. He did what he was supposed to do, and kind of got me all stuffed up behind him and I couldn't accelerate off the corner and be as close as I needed to be down into 3 to execute the ol' bump-and-run. Couldn't get quite to him, but his corner entry was really strong, too, which I think allowed him to get in there pretty strong.

“Just hate being that close to winning and not making it happen. But big points today, and it just stings. Second just sucks sometimes, that's all.”

NASCAR returns to the dirt at Bristol Motor Speedway next weekend.