Byron keeps Hendrick on top
AVONDALE, Arizona – It was a classic case of deja vu in the desert after Hendrick Motorsports continued to assert their dominance over the competition and William Byron pulled off backto-back victories to close out NASCAR's West Coast tour at Phoenix Raceway.
Byron took the green flag from third in the United Rentals Work United 500 and set the tone early on for what would be an afternoon onslaught for the Chevrolet powerhouse by leading 58-of-60 laps en route to a Stage One win.
While he couldn't quite sweep both segments like last weekend in Las Vegas, the driver of the No. 24 added to the organization's 259 laps led (83%) in Phoenix by pacing the field for a total 62 circuits and survived a thrilling overtime restart to secure a fourth-straight win for Team Chevy.
It was Byron's teammate Kyle Larson who did a bulk of the heavy lifting in Avondale after winning Stage Two and leading 197 laps.
The driver of the No. 5 appeared to be in the catbird's seat at the end, firing off pit road first following the final pit stop. However, he was unable to handle an errant push from runner-up Ryan Blaney into Turn 1 to overtake his teammate for the win.
At any rate, it was another phenomenal day for Hendrick Motorsports after all four cars placed inside of the top-10.
Tucson-born Alex Bowman rose to the occasion at his home track after tallying his fourth-straight top-10 of the season — the most of any driver in the NASCAR Cup Series — and his first in Phoenix since 2016.
In one of the more feel-good stories of the afternoon, NASCAR Xfinity Series regular and 32-year-old Josh Berry wound up 10th in just his second start driving the No. 9 car for Chase Elliott, who was unable to compete due to a fractured tibia.
Next-best behind HMS was none other than the “King of Phoenix” Kevin Harvick, who looked like he would ride off into the sunset with a 10th victory at the one-mile track in his final season until a caution flew with about 10 laps to go. Pit road proved to be both his best friend and worst enemy after it gave him an opportunity to emerge victorious, but also corrupted it in the latter stages of the race.
Harvick was the only driver to make a green-flag pass for the lead when he got around Larson in the final stage thanks to a blistering-fast pit stop by his No. 4 crew.
When the caution flew with 10 to go, the Stewart-Haas Racing driver entered pit road as the leader, but opted for four fresh tires seeing as how important handling was. To his dismay, six other teams preferred track position and only took two tires, miring him in seventh during the overtime restart.
Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time for Harvick to optimize his four fresh Goodyear tires and had to settle for his 20th consecutive top-10 finish with a fifth-place outing.