As anyone would have expected, the penultimate race of the 2023 NASCAR season was indeed a “slug-fest” as William Byron called it. Although he will be joining his brother-in-law (Ryan Blaney) in the most coveted Championship 4, his day wasn’t even remotely as good as the results sound. However, he did have a reliable team behind him to get him through those tormenting 3-hours, 29-minute long race.

Being the last race before the Grand Finale, the stakes were as high as the sky. For William Byron, his 30-point was perhaps the only good thing. It’s that point advantage that aided him to advance into next week’s race despite failing to get anything better than a 13th-place finish. But crew chief Rudy Fugle wouldn’t let the Hendrick Motorsports icon lose hope, not after the race and certainly not during it.

Although embarrassed, Rudy Fugle did everything he could to keep Byron in the game

With Goodyear designing wider tires for the Xfinity 500, the results were bound to be all about trial and error. However, laying off more rubber on the track wouldn’t help a lot if mere passing was almost impossible on a racetrack. And that is exactly what happened at the paperclip-shaped short track in Virginia on Sunday.

With the 0.5 mile track not being multi-groove, drivers were not left with too many options to clear the traffic and move forward. Hence, the only option the teams had was to improve their cars and conjure strategies. To the utter despair of the Hendrick Motorsports sensation, his crew chief failed to do what was expected of him.

And that left him embarrassed. Fugle wanted to make the car more manageable for Byron, but alas, all he could do was to motivate him over the radio and pray that he stayed away from mistakes. Rudy Fugle let out heavy sighs as he spoke to the Frontstretch reporters moments after the race was done and dusted. “Disappointed and kind of embarrassed on how the car was for him today… little bit sombre right now and still excited. Kind of bittersweet on the day,” said Fugle.

According to the #24 team’s crew chief, there’s not a lot that the crew can do for these 500-lap long races other than working on the cars. “You can do nothing for these long runs and you got to work on the cars and it’s super hard to pass even when you get the car better,” he said, “So we were able to get the car better and we were able to hold position, maybe pick up a couple spots here and there but we were not good enough to ever drive through the field.”

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Indeed, it wasn’t a great day for the Chevy speedster. He called it their “worst race of the year”. And his bloodshot eyes and bright red face spoke vibrantly of the pressure that he had just thrown off his shoulders.

William Byron was just one step away from giving up; but thanks to his team, he didn’t

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For a driver with a series-high 6 wins this year, qualifying 16th for Sunday’s race was frustrating. To add to it, Byron drove out of the top 15 almost the entire race. The final 50 laps tortured the HMS star the most. During a post race interview, he even admitted that he was almost going to faint.

“My helmet fan wouldn’t work, my face is bright red, when your head is blowing like a hair dryer, it’s really tough,” he said, “I was gonna faint before I was gonna finish or get out of the race.” Nevertheless, he hung on to his steering for dear life and for his team, who had spent countless hours to get him the car that he was driving. “We were not very good. But these guys deserve it so much and they worked so hard,” he added.

According to NBC Sports, Byron had a gut feeling the night before that something wasn’t right. Although it wasn’t anything against the efforts they had given, Byron said, “I just didn’t have the feeling in the car that I wanted, and I knew it was going to be battle.” And indeed, it was a battle.

In the Frontstretch interview, Rudy Fugle let out how he was trying his best to keep Byron focused on the race. Fugle said, “Just trying to keep William in the game, when you get some track position, let him know that nobody is passing!”

As a race fanatic and a Hendrick Motorsports supporter, one could only cross their fingers and pray that Byron and his #24 team succeeds to do everything they can do to win at Phoenix next week. And with that, the countdown begins now!

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