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William Byron and Rudy Fugle got their first Cup Series victory last weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway, but collectively, they have done this before. After two years with Chad Knaus on the top of the box, Rick Hendrick reunited Byron with Fugle, hoping to reignite the duo's magic from the Truck Series in 2016.
Driving for Kyle Busch Motorsports, Byron and Fugle had a monster year together, winning seven times with 11 top-five and 16 top-ten finishes in 23 starts.
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William Byron puts it all together in Miami
After a dismal start to the season at Daytona International Speedway, where William Byron finished P26 in the Daytona 500 and P33 on its road course, the 23-year-old won handily in race number three.
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Now that he has locked himself into the playoffs, does that change the strategy for the future?
“For us today, the approach doesn’t really change that much because we know what worked, and we know what we want to achieve in our car,” Byron said in a weekly Zoom call. “Vegas is different than this past weekend, but in some ways, it’s similar. For us, there might be a little more openness to a two-tire call or a little bit more strategy. But we’re still trying to race as hard as we can and try to win this weekend, as well … work on some pit road stuff on my end and work on some stuff for the pit crew; all those kinds of things we do to try and get better.”
William Byron had just one win coming into this year, the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona in 2020. That came in August, and up to that point, he had just 8 top-tens. With the pressure off to make the playoffs, the Charlotte native can just concentrate on getting as many bonus points as he can for his run at the championship.
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Byron was just 18 when he was paired with Fugle in 2016 and admitted he was a little naïve about what racing was all about. Fugle was the right choice at the right time. He had worked with drivers like Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, and Erk Jones before taking over with William Byron that season. Overall, Fugle had crewed 210 races before making his Cup Series debut this year.
“I could tell him what I felt and the things I thought I needed, and he always listened but always brought some insight himself,” said Byron. “He picks up on little things. I think that’s the biggest thing with him, the attention to detail in all aspects. When we got back together this year, we had been away from each other for a while, and both learned from our experiences over the last few years that kind of strengthened us. In a lot of ways, we’re more technical now than we were back in the trucks.”
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As William Byron heads to Las Vegas, a track where he has just one top-ten in six Cup tries, he hopes to exceed expectations as he did in Miami. HMS is a mile-and-a-half track, and so is Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
