William Byron Scores Iowa Win With 145-Lap Fuel Economy Run

William Byron and his crew chief, Rudy Fugle, didn’t exactly have plans to run the final 145 laps of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series event at Iowa Speedway on a single tank of fuel, but when things got crazy mid-race and the opportunity presented itself, the No. 24 team had to seize it.

Unlike a pair of recent events where the Charlotte, North Carolina-native had good finishes hampered by running out of gas before the finish, Byron, with a lot of intense coaching from his crew chief, was able to get the No. 24 Raptor Chevrolet across the start-finish line under power and with the race-lead.

“Yeah, it was just a big relief. I feel like we have been on the bad side of some fuel races, and everybody has been working super hard and that was every ounce it took there at the end,” Byron said post-race. “Man, just so damn proud of this team. I fell like we have been through so much this year, and everybody has been working super hard and it showed there at the end.”

The 27-year-old driver dominated the early portion of Sunday’s 350-lapper, spending the entire first stage in an intense battle with Brad Keselowski for the lead of the race, pacing the field for the opening 67 laps, before falling into the shadows after the end of the first stage.

It wasn’t until Lap 277, when the outcome of all the different strategies came into focus, that Byron returned to the race-lead… but there was a lot that happened between those two significant moments for the No. 24, mostly a whopping 11 caution flags.

That string of cautions significantly slowed down the race’s pace and began with a single-car spin by Shane van Gisbergen at Lap 171. What followed was a stretch of back-to-back-to-back cautions that saw no green flag run of more than 20 laps until the 64-lap run to the checkered flag.

RACE RESULTS: 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Iowa Corn 350 at Iowa Speedway

With the field finally released from the shackles of the constant starting and stopping action, several interesting storylines played out throughout the tail-end of the race, including Byron’s fuel conservation, and a battle for the victory between Byron, Chase Briscoe, and Brad Keselowski.

The victory on Sunday ends a tough stretch of races for the Hendrick Motorsports driver, in which the regular-season points lead that Byron had built throughout the season had completely evaporated. Entering Iowa, Byron had dropped to second in standings to teammate Chase Elliott.

“It’s been tough results-wise, but man we have had speed,” Byron added. “It’s just been a couple of things here and there that just didn’t go our way and today we got the cautions that we needed. I think the real play was when we took four tires there on the last pit stop, which felt like an eternity ago, We just were on the good side of tire life as well; able to have some good restarts and just get our way forward.”

Chase Briscoe, after winning a series-leading sixth pole position on Saturday, managed to bring his Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry XSE home in the runner-up spot. Brad Keselowski, after looking like the driver to beat all afternoon, had to settle for third as part of a late-battle.

With a late pit stop, Ryan Blaney had the freshest tires on his No. 12 Ford Mustang and drove through the field to garner a fourth-place result – and was within striking distance of Briscoe and Keselowski in the final laps but ran out of time to attack. Ryan Preece scored another top-five, in fifth.

Bubba Wallace rebounded from going two laps down with a broken toe link and getting two free passes, to finish in sixth, after driving through the entire pack during the final green-flag run. Alex Bowman, Carson Hocevar, Joey Logano, and Austin Dillon completed the top-10.

The event featured 12 total caution flags for 72 laps and had 10 lead changes among six drivers. Brad Keselowski recorded the XFINITY Fastest Lap on Lap 197, with a lap time of 23.748 seconds.

Leaving Iowa, William Byron holds an 18-point advantage over Chase Elliott in the regular-season point standings, with Kyle Larson sitting in third, 45 markers behind. With only three races until the post-season, and a repeat winner, there is a guarantee that all winners will be in the post-season, unless a winless driver wins the regular-season title.

Next, the NASCAR Cup Series heads to Watkins Glen International for the second-to-last road course event of the season. Coverage of the event will be on Sunday, August 10 at 2:00 pm ET on USA Network, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

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