NASCAR Roundtable's Tyler Jones goes 1-On-1 with William Byron, ahead of Sunday's Cracker Barrel 400 from Nashville Superspeedway
LEBANON, Tenn. - William Byron hasn’t had the season he was really hoping for. At this point last year, Byron was leading the points standings. Fast forward to the present day and he has yet to get to victory lane in 2026.
As Byron enters the second half of the regular season, his turning point could be right now.
Last week, it didn’t seem like Byron was having the day he was looking for, and then all of sudden, he found himself in the top ten with a ninth place finish.
Byron stated, “We just had some damage in the first stage that hurt our car potentially, and then I thought we did a good job staying on the lead lap, getting the lead lap back, and being able to just have a good fourth stage. We had a couple of good restarts and the race ended there with the rain.”
Now while Byron hasn’t started the way he was hoping for, the same can be said for all of Hendrick Motorsports.
So far, Chase Elliott is the only driver in the organization to get to victory lane so far this year, with Byron, Kyle Larson, and Alex Bowman all winless.
One thing that has been pointed out has been the difficulty in adjusting to the new Chevrolet body that debuted this season, forcing the team to adapt.
Byron seemed optimistic about where things are going from here saying, “There’s a ton of work going on behind the scenes just to kinda get it right. I would like to think we are gaining on it.”
While Byron looks for his first win, Nashville Superspeedway could be the place to do it. He’ll start Sunday’s race eighth and was the tenth fastest in practice.
In Byron’s career, he’s compiled 16 career victories, including two in the Daytona 500, but has yet to win at Nashville.
It hasn’t been a bad year for Byron as he currently sits eighth in points, but it hasn’t been a great year either. The new Chase format requires championship contenders to be great, and if Byron is going to be a threat to win it all, Nashville is an opportunity for him to show off the greatness that he’s capable of.
When asked what it will take to get it done this weekend he said, “We’ve had some top five runs here, so we’ve been okay, we just gotta see.”
