Stretching his last tank of fuel for the final 144 laps, William Byron held on to win a nail-biter at Iowa Speedway over pole-sitter Chase Briscoe and Brad Keselowski.
“Man, we deserved that one,” Byron told his team on the radio after his second victory this season. “Appreciate it. Thanks to everybody.”
It was the second win of the season for Byron, who lost a race at Michigan International Speedway two months ago when his No. 24 Chevrolet ran out of fuel.
In the closing laps at Iowa, crew chief Rudy Fugle kept coaching his driver to “Back it up! Back it up!” to Briscoe — slowing down his pace for improved mileage as his lead hovered around a second.
“How about that for some fuel mileage?” Byron joked with NASCAR on NBC pit reporter Marty Snider. “We’ve had our fair share of things not go our way with fuel mileage. Super thankful for Rudy and all these guys, the engineers back at the shop. We’ve been through a lot this year. There’s been a lot of growing pains. It’s been tough on us, but it feels really good today to get a win.”
Briscoe notched his third runner-up finish in the past four races after his fifth pole position of the season.
“There at the end, I was running William down,” Briscoe, who led 81 laps, told NASCAR on NBC pit reporter Kim Coon. “I thought I was really in the catbird seat there, and I just got there and kind of stalled out. I kind of experienced that when I was leading earlier. I caught the back of the field, and same thing; as soon as I got there, I just kind of died. You’re kind of limited where you can go with the repave and everything, but overall great finish for our Toyota.
“For us to end up second was a good recovery. Our day kind of got flipped upside down whenever that caution came out and trapped us and was able to rebound. Congrats to William. He did a really good job, and go on to the next one.”
Ryan Blaney and Ryan Preece rounded out the top five.
Byron made his final pit stop on Lap 206 of 350 on the 0.875-mile oval, where the pit window is estimated at about 115 to 120 green-flag laps. The Hendrick Motorsports driver led a race-high 141 laps in his first victory since winning the Daytona 500 season opener.
“Honestly, felt like we had a good car and just kind of raced it and just tried to be there at the end, and we were,” Byron said. “Luckily, the fuel was enough at the end. I think I ran out right there, that’s why I stopped.”
After a clean Stage 1 without a caution flag, the race got extremely choppy after only one yellow in the first 170 laps.
The second half of the race featured 11 cautions, which had a cascading effect on myriad strategies and left some strong cars in precarious tactical spots.
Keselowski won the first two stages and led three times for 68 laps, but his No. 6 Ford got trapped in a difficult strategy by a rash of yellows that bookended the end of Stage 2. The Roush Fenway Keselowski driver-owner pitted from the lead on Lap 231 and was unable to get back to the front after falling outside the top 20.
“Just the way the yellows fell,” Keselowski told NASCAR on NBC pit reporter Dave Burns. “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. Got back by a lot of guys; restarted I think 24th there after we pitted, and got all the way up to third, but that was as far as I could get.
“Yeah, great run for both of our RFK cars. Obviously we want to win, but we’re in contention, that’s for sure. ... Just keep putting solid runs on the board. and I feel like this will come to us and we’ve got some pretty strong Ford Mustangs right now.”
Bubba Wallace followed up his Brickyard 400 victory with a sixth-place finish despite falling two laps down and sustaining damage to his No. 23 Toyota during a miserable first half.
“We had an up and down day,” Wallace said. “Had our damages, had our issues, and just really fought hard to get our Camry back in the top 10. Felt really good firing off and I was a little hesitant on how that was going to last. Here we are P6 after that middle of the race. If you had told me I would finish six, I would have told you, ‘Yeah, right!’ It ran good at the end. So there’s some things to take from there. I thought our crew did an amazing job fixing all the repairs.”
Stage 1 winner: Keselowski
Stage 2 winner: Keselowski
Next: Sunday, Aug. 10, 2 p.m. ET at Watkins Glen International on USA
