William Byron passed AJ Allmendinger for the top spot in Sunday’s Quaker State 400 on Lap 166. He’d lead 11 green flag laps before the Turn 3 incident between Bubba Wallace, Ryan Preece and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

While under caution, rain began to fall on the 1.54-mile Atlanta Motor Speedway. Eventually, NASCAR brought the cars down pit lane to stop. They’d never get back going again.

As a result, Byron won his fourth race of the season and eighth of his NASCAR Cup Series career. Some may be asking, how? How does a driver who had a penalty on pit road after the opening stage break, one that was spun and lost a lap in that second stage, win a rain shortened event.

Byron was asking the same question.

“Just teamwork. Honestly I don’t completely understand this one,” Byron admitted after scoring his 2nd Atlanta win in the last 4 races. “It’s a really good feeling. I’ve never had a rain victory like this. But just thanks to AXALTA Chevrolet. It’s cool.”

It was a perfect storm scenario.

Sometimes all you need is a little lady luck on your side. That’s exactly what happened to Byron. With rain closing, most knew that it was only a matter of time before this race ends. The problem was, no one knew exactly when the rain was coming.

So, Byron was one of nine drivers to duck down pit road during the fifth caution of the night.

On Lap 122, Corey LaJoie and Erik Jones made contact exiting Turn 2. It sparked a seven-car incident. Two laps later, Byron, AJ Allmendinger, Daniel Suarez, Todd Gilliland, Kyle Busch, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Cole Custer and JJ Yeley elected to pit.

Why not? They lacked track position and were gambling that the rain would fall long enough into the final stage that those ahead would still need to pit themselves.

That’s exactly how it played out.

The Roush Fenway Racing duo of Brad Keselowski and Chris Buescher battled the Team Penske trio of Austin Cindric, Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano lap-after-lap to close out the second stage on Lap 160. The problem for them was, rain was forecasted to come within the next 15-20 minutes. They didn’t feel like they had enough gas to get them to that point.

So, most of the leaders pit on the Lap 160 stage break. Those that pit on Lap 124 stayed out hopeful for weather to come into play before the scheduled distance.

Allmendinger, Michael McDowell, Jones, Byron, Suarez, Gilliland, Yeley, Stenhouse Jr., Custer, Busch and Ty Dillon stayed out. Bubba Wallace, Martin Truex Jr., Erik Jones, Buescher, Aric Almirola and Tyler Reddick took two tires. Everyone else took four.

“Rudy made a good call to pit there and then stay out, and once we got towards the front it was okay,” Byron said.

On the ensuring restart, Allmendinger held onto the lead. But only for six laps. He says that his car wasn’t setup to be leading as it had far too much drag in it to be competitive up front.

“We had a race car that handled really well. Probably didn’t lead very well,” Allmendinger admitted. “We probably had a little bit too much drag in it. But we kind of had that idea that we came with handling, so once I got to the lead I couldn’t really defend because they would get such big runs, but we could stay up front.”

Allmendinger has never been a fan of superspeedways so Kaulig Racing felt like if they could get his No. 16 Chevrolet with the right balance, it would make Allmendinger more comfortable in the car. It did. His best shot to win was using the draft late to lead just the final lap.

Unfortunately for he and those around him, they never got that shot.

Byron held off the field while Suarez rose to second, by Allmendinger. He had a car capable of getting by the Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 Chevy, but knew also that with drivers like Allmendinger and Michael McDowell behind, there’s no way that they were going to work with him and push him by Byron.

All three are winless on the season and selfishly, if they couldn’t win for themselves, having Byron win was far better than one of the other two.

“I wish I had one more shot at it,” Suarez said. “With that being said, I had two cars in third and fourth, they also needed to win. If they could pick somebody to help, it wasn’t going to be me.”

Suarez, qualified only 26th and didn’t score a single stage point (19th, 17th). That pit call on Lap 124 helped him. While now having track position for the first time all night, his No. 99 Chevy was flying. Suarez rode in Byron’s shadow hoping to find a path by. Then the rain hit.

McDowell started 20th and scored six total stage points, three in each stage, with 8th place finishes in both. He went even longer than the rest with rolling the dice to not only stay out on Lap 124, but he didn’t pit on Lap 160 either. He was hopeful for the rain to come before his engine sputtered.

He got lucky and it did. McDowell went from Lap 98 until the early finish on Lap 185 without pitting. That gamble has him into the playoffs at the moment.

“Obviously, that pit road incident with Martin took us out of the track position we needed, so we had to get a little bit creative there. I’m thankful to be able to recover, but really wish I’d have held those guys off at the end. We had a shot on that restart, obviously, starting on the front row. I thought I executed the start pretty well, but just couldn’t quite get clear of AJ (Allmendinger) like I needed to, but it didn’t work out. We were close, though.”

Plus, the points factor for Suarez, McDowell and Allmendinger played a massive role in this too.

Suarez (-6), McDowell (-10) and Allmendinger (-24) each entered the night below the playoff cutline. 2 of the 3 leave above it.

With Bubba Wallace being collected in a crash late and Ty Gibbs being collected in the Lap 122 caution, it helped both Suarez (2nd place) Allmendinger (3rd place) and McDowell (4th place) to make up a ton of ground.

Both Suarez and McDowell are each tied now for 15th in points with 307 points accumulated Wallace falls from 15 points up to 3 points down. Allmendinger is next up in 18th (-13). Gibbs falls to 19th (-26).

Which is why this was a case of a perfect storm for Byron to hold them off for the win.

“We could honestly make the right decisions, block okay, and got the lead from AJ and just was able to manage the run.

“Just a crazy night,” said Byron.