William Byron backed up last weekend’s victory at Las Vegas with a victory in Sunday’s United Rentals 500 at Phoenix Raceway. Its his 6th career win and his first at the short track.
In NASCAR’s first race with a new short track package, the race was mostly run without incident. Aric Almirola would bring out the first non stage caution of the event when the right front tire on his GoBowling.com Ford would come apart from the rim. Almirola would come home 31st.
For most of the day it was the Hendrick motorsports show, for the second time in two weeks. Kyle Larson and Byron would trade the lead several times. Not far behind was 9 time Phoenix race winner Kevin Harvick, would grab the lead from Larson with 44 laps to go. It seemed as if Harvick was going to cruise to victory, however with 11 laps to go Harrison Burton would have a tire come apart and he’d make contact with the wall. That set up a late set of pit stops, which included a myriad of strategy calls. Harvick would exit the pits 7th, after everyone else took 2 tires. Shortly after the green dropped on 4 lap dash to the finish, AJ Almendinger and Ty Gibbs would make contact and the caution flew again.
Byron would hold on in overtime to pick up his second win of the season, with Ryan Blaney and Tyler Reddick in second and third.
Next up for the Cup series is a date with the series newest superspeedway in Atlanta, where William Byron has won the last two races.
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