William Byron has enough fuel to win NASCAR Cup race at Iowa Speedway
NEWTON, Iowa — William Byron fought off fuel worries in the closing laps to win the NASCAR Cup Series race Sunday at Iowa Speedway.
Byron went the last 144 laps of the 350-lap race without a stop en route to his second victory of the season — he won the Daytona 500 in February — and 15th overall. He also took the season points lead from Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott.
Byron lost gambles on fuel twice this season, at Michigan and Indianapolis, but held on with the help of a caution-filled final stage to win by 1.192 seconds over pole-sitter Chase Briscoe.
“We needed one to go our way,” said Byron, who led 141 laps.
Brad Keselowski, who came into the race needing a win to get into the playoffs, was third. Keselowski, who hasn’t won since the May race at Darlington last season, won the first two stages for his first stage sweep since 2019.
Ryan Blaney, who won the inaugural Cup race at the 0.875-mile oval last season, finished fourth, Ryan Preece was fifth.
Bubba Wallace, Alex Bowman, Carson Hocevar, Joey Logano and Austin Dillon rounded out the Top 10.
There were 12 caution flags. The first stage was caution-free, and the first yellow flag for any on-track incident didn’t come out until Shane Van Gisbergen’s spin on Lap 169. From that point, the race became a cascade of caution flags as the cars began to stack up and drivers scrambled for position.
Briscoe was involved in two late incidents.
Briscoe made contact with Erik Jones coming out of Turn 4 on Lap 243, causing Jones to spin. Nine laps later, Briscoe bumped Tyler Reddick, who then hit Christopher Bell, causing Reddick and Bell to spin.
Wallace admitted Saturday that after winning last week at Indianapolis to secure a playoff spot he would be able to relax over the last four races of the regular season.
This race wasn’t relaxing — he fell down by as much as two laps before finishing sixth.
John Hunter Nemechek made contact with Wallace on Lap 242, forcing the rear-end of Wallace’s car to hit the wall near the start/finish line. Wallace headed to the pits after Jones’ spin to have a right-rear toe link repaired.
The series moves to Watkins Glen International in New York next Sunday. Chris Buescher is the defending race winner. Van Gisbergen has won three straight on road/street courses.
