When William Byron started sliding back early in Sunday’s South Point 400, most thought that once the race truly got going, he’d make a fight back. We were told that he had a better long run car. However, once Lap 10, then 20, then 30, then 35 clicked on by, Byron who was now outside the top 5 wasn’t making any headway back up. Even with two cautions and a pair of pit stops in the opening stage, he still finished 10th.

Crew Chief Rudy Fugle would work on the No. 24 Chevrolet though. Constantly tinkering with the ride on each stop. It worked to get him back to 6th by the end of the second stage. In the final stage, he worked himself back into the top 3.

This is who we all thought he’d be.

Then he faded again. Byron crossed the finish line on Lap 267 in 7th.

“We definitely need to just work on our build and how we build loose, but our No. 24 Relay Payments Chevrolet was solid,” Byron admitted. “The points are a lot tighter than we would want them to be, so we just have to have two good weeks, and hopefully go to Homestead and have a little bit better long run speed. But overall, happy with our execution.”

He entered the weekend +20 in points. But, with Kyle Larson sweeping both stages and taking the win, just as Byron did here in March, as well as Christopher Bell netting 17 stage points and finishing 2nd, Byron’s gap fell by 11 points to +9 heading to the Homestead-Miami Speedway next weekend.

This spring, Byron led 176 of 271 laps in not only a pair of stage wins but the race victory as well. In the last round, he finished 1st, 2nd, 2nd. That’s why it was shocking to see him finish 7th and not lead a lap.

On intermediate tracks this season, he had previously finished first, third, first, second, eighth, fourth, 15th and first respectively.