NASCAR's Hendrick Motorsports just might be better than ever

Byron led teammates Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott to the line after passing Elliott late in the going, and then holding on through a late restart after John Hunter Nemechek's blown tire sent the race to overtime for the second week in a row.

It's the first ever 1-2-3 finish for any team at Martinsville, only adding to Hendrick's long list of accolades as a team owner at NASCAR's top level ever since Geoffrey Bodine won the 1984 Sovran Bank 500. At that time, the small team then known as "All-Star Racing" was operating on a shoestring budget and was on the verge of shutting down, but Bodine's victory at Martinsville kept Hendrick's operation afloat.

The rest, as they say, is history, and now 14 Cup championships and more than 300 wins later, HMS may be just entering its golden era right now.

Sure, Jeff Gordon had an iconic run of success in the late 1990s. Jimmie Johnson's five-straight championships between 2006 and 2010 was unprecedented, and likely never to be seen again. However, Byron's emergence since the start of 2023 into the top tier of drivers in NASCAR that Larson and Elliott already occupy, gives the team three different yearly title threats, all in their primes.

Byron's win on Sunday is his third of 2024 in only eight races, and his ninth in the past two seasons. Larson has also already visited victory lane in 2024 at Las Vegas, and his 454 laps led top all drivers. Elliott, meanwhile, hasn't won since 2022 but seems to be slowly returning to form after an injury-plagued 2023.

Elliott and Larson both already have Cup Series championships on their resumes, in 2020 and 2021 respectively. If Byron joins them this year or at some point in the near future, this has to be considered Hendrick's greatest lineup ever.

During Gordon's reign in the 1990s, Terry Labonte was the only other Hendrick driver who ever challenged him for a title. Then Gordon himself never won another championship once Johnson entered the Cup Series in 2002, while Hendrick made dire mistakes in letting future champs Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski get away.

The three-headed monster Hendrick currently employs -- with no disrespect to fourth driver Alex Bowman either, who is a seven-time Cup race winner and regular playoff contender -- has the chance to wreak havoc on the Cup Series for as far as the eye can see. They say iron sharpens iron, and right now there's an argument that the three best NASCAR drivers of their generation are all on the same team.