Martinsville represents emotional trip down memory lane for William Byron

William Byron has experienced some of his most life-defining moments at Martinsville Speedway. 

At 6 or 7 years old, he attended a NASCAR race for the first time at the iconic Virginia track, the paper-clip-shaped 0.526-mile oval. The experience mesmerized him, and his parents allowed him to stay for the whole 500 laps, an accomplishment in and of itself for someone that young.

Fast-forward to the Martinsville race in April 2021. Byron thought his mother was watching him compete from a suite. He didn’t know until after the race that she had collapsed from a stroke-like event. By that time, his mom was about to be transported from a Martinsville hospital to one in Charlotte.

A year later, his mother, well into her recovery from a brain tumor, sat atop Byron’s pit box during the April 2022 race. Dana and Bill Byron cheered their son to victory, an emotional night considering what that track represented.

It was easily the biggest of his six career Cup wins.

"The way that I felt after the race, just the emotions and feeling like it was bigger than just myself — that was definitely what I thought about," William Byron said. "I would say [it’s the biggest] for a couple of reasons — for my mom and then also the fact that I went there for the first-ever race that I watched in person. 

"Those two things, it always has been a special place to me."

Byron hopes to create more memories this weekend at Martinsville Speedway, where the Cup Series visits for a 400-lap tussle. The Hendrick Motorsports driver already has two wins this year and knows he will make the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.

He has a little bit of a confidence, maybe even a swagger, entering Martinsville. He ranks first in the series in miles led (18.7%) and second in the series in laps led (19.4%) through eight races this season.

The speed he's brought weekly to the track gives him a similar feeling he had in other series where he was a championship contender. But he hadn’t had that feeling since joining the Cup Series in 2018.

"I feel like my team and I are the guys — I’ve never had that feeling in the Cup Series before," Byron said. "We’ve won races, but we've never consistently run up front every week.

"It feels good. We’ve got to cap results off with it when we have great runs." 

Martinsville could be another place he thrives. He has led 451 laps in the past six short-track races (not including Bristol dirt). His four consecutive top-10 finishes at Martinsville are second-best in the series, behind only Joey Logano (seven).

Byron hopes the revised, reduced-downforce short-track package performs better at Martinsville, as he saw a little improvement at Richmond and believes the tire will fall off more.

Byron also gets his crew chief back in the pits this week. Rudy Fugle, like all Hendrick crew chiefs, was suspended for the past four races for modified hood louvers. The crew chiefs can be at the track but not in the garage or pit road, and they can't communicate on the team radio.

Suspended crew chiefs often either work at another location at the track or in the team’s headquarters, communicating with the acting crew chief through either texts or other messaging platforms.

That is more an inconvenience than a huge burden, but it will be nice for Byron to have Fugle in his typical location in the garage and on pit road.

And maybe more importantly, the driver-crew chief relationship is as much about tone when talking to each other on the in-car radio as it is the information delivered.

"Having Rudy back next week, I won’t have to think so much when I’m in the car [as in], What does this mean? What’s the tone?" Byron said. "I’ll be a little more relaxed in the car when Rudy’s back."

Sound and tone are the foundation to Byron’s Martinsville experience.

It was that first trip to Martinsville, when his family had grandstand tickets but ended up moving around a little bit to different sections, that set a career in motion.

"It was loud, but I had a headset on," Byron said. "It was everything that I thought it would be and more.

"The way the cars sounded and the excitement around the race, I was just captured. ... That stuck with me for years and that is really why I started to race. I remember that feeling and the adrenaline that came with it."

So, Martinsville was always a place of fond memories for Byron. Until it wasn’t in April 2021.

His mother had brain surgery and now goes in for checks every six months.

"Every report has been good," Byron said.

Dana Byron visited the Martinsville hospital prior to the April 2022 race to thank those who had taken care of her a year earlier.

She didn’t hesitate to return to the track.

"It brings back good memories because I survived, and I’m here, and my cancer is gone," she said following her son's win last year. "For me, it’s a happy thing, not a sad thing."

Looking back to two years ago, William Byron obviously sees a day his life changed, and it had nothing to do with a fourth-place finish.

"It was such a crazy, crazy sequence of events," Byron said. "Just that feeling that I had when I got back to the bus after the race — everything just kind of stopped and that's just something that will always kind of stick with you.

"After she was taken to the hospital and after I realized that [happened], that's something that will always stick in my mind."

He’ll be happy to see his parents rooting for him at Martinsville once again.

"They'll be there for sure," Byron said. "They’ve been to like two races this year so far. They probably come to maybe a third of the races.

"It'll be nice to have them there."

What To Watch For

How will the short-track package do at Martinsville? There is hope it will create more side-by-side racing and, with reduced downforce and cars more unstable, the potential for more spins.

Last year, the first two stages of both races went caution-free. The final stage a year ago had two cautions; the final stage in October had four cautions.

Both races featured two drivers who led at least 150 laps — Chase Elliott and Byron (race winner) in the April race and Christopher Bell (race winner) and Denny Hamlin in the October race.

What made Hamlin’s run more impressive is that he struggled in the previous race at Martinsville.

So, who from six months ago improves like that? Hard to tell with the reduced downforce package. The Fords are the least likely.

One thing fans won’t look for is a repeat of the Ross Chastain move from the end of the race. In the offseason, NASCAR said that hammering the gas and riding the wall with the side of the car would be penalized under the rule that covers unsafe maneuvers.

Thinking Out Loud

NASCAR didn’t issue any penalties for the Kyle Larson-Ryan Preece incident at Bristol dirt, and that’s a good thing.

The last thing drivers need are more judgment calls. They should be able to have a little boys-have-at-it type contact with each other during the event.

Hamlin shouldn’t have been penalized for wrecking Chastain at Phoenix — and NASCAR went down a slippery slope when it penalized him after he indicated it was intentional on his podcast.

If the unfortunate result of that is drivers skirting the truth in postrace interviews, the damage is already done. But that’s still a better result than NASCAR throwing black flags or docking points every time a driver who is a little frustrated doesn’t give a competitor room or gives them a tap to get by in a race. 

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They Said It

"Since the injury, he’s worked extremely hard and focused all his time and energy on returning to the No. 9 team." —Rick Hendrick on Chase Elliott

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass, and sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass.

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