‘It was mentally taxing’, William Byron holds of Bubba Wallace to win the chaotic Atalanta Cup Series Race
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William Byron wins Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500
The newly refrigerated Atlanta track produced was chaotic and wild as NASCAR got what it asked for, close pack racing. So much close in fact the race had 46 lead changes among an Atlanta-record 20 drivers in the 4-hour race with several of the top contenders were either taken out by weeks or had a smashed-up car running to the finish line.
William Byron led the final restart with 13 laps to go and through he lost the lead to Bubba Wallace briefly he grabbed it back and drove the No. 24 Rick Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to the victory. Bubba Wallace had the most enviable position going into the finish line, as he was in the right position to get the win with the helpful push for a slingshot on the final lap.
But it didn’t materialize as everyone behind Byron started dueling for the position, all of them wanting to put themselves in a position to make the winning move which worked perfectly for William Byron, who pulled away to win by 0.145 seconds over Ross Chastain while the final wreck of the day sent four cars — including Bubba Wallace — spinning across the line.
Find out what William Byron had to say about his maiden win in 2022
William Byron acknowledged, in the post-race, that the race was mentally taxing for him and went on to thank all the fans and teammates who had been along with him in this amazing experience.
“It was mentally taxing. Just thanks to all the fans for coming out. Been an awesome weekend. I got the win last night in the Late Model too, so it’s been a lot of fun,” William Byron said.
William Byron went on to add that the double-file helped him to in turn to keep up the momentum and whereas the saying single-file was relatively hard considering though it seemed easy. He added that though it was hard to keep up the lead he was helped by the fact the drivers behind him started to dual for places in the final laps.
“As soon as it got double-file, I would say [going] into Turn 1, that really helped my cause to kind of be able to just manage the momentum. But single-file, surprisingly, [it] might have looked like we were staying single-file relatively easy, but it was hard to run single-file,” William Byron said.
“It was difficult to manage the lead in the front and not have somebody get a run on you to easily pass you. … I felt like single-file was my most vulnerable place to be, and then as soon as they would get kind of doubled-up throughout the field, that was probably a little bit easier to handle,” William Byron added.
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