September 30, 2024

William Byron of Hendrick Motorsports finished as the runner-up in Sunday's Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway. Starting from the sixth position, Byron had one of the fastest cars of the field right from the beginning as in the first stage, Byron passed cars and made it to the lead. He won the first stage, captured a playoff point, and gained maximum stage points. In the second stage, Byron would grab the lead again from Joey Logano at the beginning of the next stage after Logano beat him on pit road during the stage break. However, over the course of a couple of cautions and pit stops, Byron would shuffle back to fourth at the end of the second stage, nabbing further stage points. In the final stage, Byron fell to the middle of the pack after pitting for fresh tires as others stayed out and eventually regained his track position. On the race's final restart, Byron worked back to the second position after restarting in the Top 5, but could not chase down Ross Chastain for the victory. The No. 24 driver collected a new career-best finish at Kansas in the Cup Series and now has the biggest gap on the playoff cut line as he is now 34 points ahead. Expect Byron to be a factor for a solid finish next week at Talladega, where he has three top-10 finishes at the site in a row going into the next race there.--Sean Engel - RotoBaller
Source: NASCAR.com