Good to the last kernel: William Byron wins NASCAR Iowa

There were a lot of different, and equally consequential, ways that the NASCAR Cup Series race could have ended on Sunday night at Iowa Speedway.

The ultimately conclusion was William Byron breaking a long slump, an outcome that will help him in his pursuit of a first championship, while also leaving others in the field wonder what could have been in both the micro and macro.

On a restart with 83 laps to go, Byron was an estimated five laps short on fuel from making the finish, assuming the race stayed green the rest of the way. It did not stay green the rest of the way.

But even with multiple cautions worth of help, Byron had taken the lead and was burning more fuel in clean air, and crew chief Rudy Fugle needed to guide his driver home and they just barely made it to the end.

“Yeah, that was tough,” Fugle said. “We’ll see in however many years that it aged me but it was very stressful and it did age me. We didn’t know until about eight (laps) to go that we were really, really close to our number.

“We were able to save a really big chunk and get really close and then you're also just hoping you pick everything up.”

Fugle had a second for William Byron to give up to Chase Briscoe behind him, not to mention the lappers separating them, but they made it work.

Not that Byron had complete conviction.

“I had my doubts, probably when the last caution came out and I was kind of thinking under caution, I had my doubts,” Byron said. “But I think it was replaced with, ‘okay, just do everything you can do and see how it works out.’

“What gave me confidence was that we had checked the box on all the communication of how it was going to go. So we knew how the end of the race was going to play out. We knew, okay, that restart, ‘get the lead,’ ‘here's how it's going to play out’ and ‘we're going to be a certain amount of laps short and we'll try to save that.’

“I don't know. It was pretty clear for me.”

From that standpoint, Byron could only control making those laps back up and he was able to give back enough of that second he had earned under the launch to stretch it to the end.”

Could have been

In making his fuel last to the end, Byron left several would be playoff contenders disappointing and may have ultimately denied their best chance at winning their ways into the Round of 16 which starts on Labor Day weekend.

That primarily included Brad Keselowski, who swept both opening stages and led the most laps but could only get back to third after their pit strategy necessitated one of the later pit stops amongst the contending drivers.

Keselowski, the 2012 champion, has suffered through his worst statistical season, but has surged to 19th in the standings via a strong summer but still has to win. Now Keselowski is left with just Watkins Glen, Richmond and Daytona to chase a championship this autumn.

“He caught all the breaks, and he took the opportunity and maximized it,” Keselowski said of Byron. “He deserves credit for that. That's what this sport is about. You’ve got to be fast. You’ve got to execute. And you’ve got to have some luck. And they did all three things today.”

What Keselowski needed, upon pitting and restarting from outside the top-10 with 113 laps to go, was a long green flag run to be able to pick cars off one-by-one with minimum aero push but the field kept crashing.

“Every yellow was bad for us,” Keselowski said. “You get frustrated at the field for wrecking so much.”

A similar dynamic was at play for his teammate, Ryan Preece, who was also in the mix, but he wanted restarts with the freshest tires of the group.

“I thought if we had a bunch of restarts we were going to be okay because we were so, so good in that third lane,” Preece said. “But it just seemed that long run, that last run, wasn’t the best thing for us.

“On that restart when we were able to get to third, I thought we were going to have a shot at it. It seemed we could close in on the 19 and the 24 a little bit and then I just got loose.”

The RFK Racing cars also had another dilemma.

If Preece or Keselowski had won, it would have bumped other teammate Chris Buescher from the provisional playoffs, as all three RFK cars are still winless this season.

“When Brad was catching me I thought ‘what is the best thing to do for a teammate and for the company?’ and wanted to give him the opportunity even if it was at a deficit for us,” Preece said of letting Keselowski go.

“Ultimately, I look forward to Watkins Glen, Richmond and Daytona. All three of can still get in [to the Playoffs]. It is going to take a lot of perseverance and a lot of luck but we have fast race cars and we can get the job done.”

To a lesser extent, the result was consequential for runner-up Chase Briscoe, because a second win would have meant five more playoff points as well. But Byron, even while saving, had a clean air advantage.

“It kind of died once I got there. I ran him down and I thought I was going to be really good,” Briscoe said. “I was better in (turns) 1 and 2 and I kind of struggled in (turns) 3 and 4 compared to him. Once I got there, he started taking my air and my car just kind of died as soon as that happened. I thought I was going to be able to still be good, especially as he caught lapped traffic there. I still just didn’t quite have enough there.

“It’s unfortunate, I was trying everything I had, I just didn’t have anything left in the tank. Good recovery for our Bass Pro Shops Toyota, I would have loved to win. William did a great job, it’s just the way it goes today.”

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