William Byron

LJ7201 said:
a drawback of restrictions on cup guys xfinity is that young stars get less chances to beat the best and truly prove themselves, pretty sure Harrison Burton said smth along those lines
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The whole Cup-guys-in-Xfinity thing is kind of a Catch-22. While the restrictions may result in some of the Xfinity guys being not quite ready for Cup when they come up, at least they’re now coming up. There was a pretty big dearth of NW/Xfinity drivers coming up to Cup in those years when Cup drivers were winning pretty much every race. The cupboard was really bare between about 2007 and 2015, when you had guys like Kevin Conway, Andy Lally, Stephen Leicht, and Brett Moffitt winning Cup ROTY. Granted, a lot of Cup seats have opened up in recent years too, with Gordon, Stewart, Earnhardt Jr, Edwards, and Kenseth (for a little bit) all retiring in the last few years.
 
LJ7201 said:
a drawback of restrictions on cup guys xfinity is that young stars get less chances to beat the best and truly prove themselves, pretty sure Harrison Burton said smth along those lines
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eh I call B.S..They are in Cup making Cup money and THEN they are learning, not having some goofs from Cup racing down in the Xfinity series, bringing their Cup prepared hybrid car and his Cup hybrid team, taking their money and points. Somebody forgot to tell Reddick and Custer they are rookies and Bell has a top 5 and 5 top 10's driving junk.
 
StandOnIt said:
eh I call B.S..They are in Cup making Cup money and THEN they are learning, not having some goofs from Cup racing down in the Xfinity series, bringing their Cup prepared hybrid car and his Cup hybrid team, taking their money and points. Somebody forgot to tell Reddick and Custer they are rookies and Bell has a top 5 and 5 top 10's driving junk.
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I see both ways but the field in Xfinity is so weak it can cloud the judgement of how good these young guys actually are. Past Briscoe and Cindric idk who actually deserves a Cup seat in that series rn. If we're gonna put them in Cup then have them learn up there then the general judgement of young drivers should be far more forgiving and this "Byron hot seat" discussion should not be occurring.

As with most every rule it opens up a can of worms though because with Cup drivers in Xfinity it screws with the "win and you're in" format, etc. What we have now is better than Cup guys running full seasons like Busch 2009 but I wouldn't mind a few more instances of Cup guys coming down than the current rules allow.
 
suprised no one has mentioned the fact that the guy has one of the greatest CC of all time on his box. not to mention he tears up a lot of racecars, id say 2021 is absolutely make or break for young Weeyum
 
Formerjackman said:
Don't forget that Byron has less total seat time than Elliott or Bowman or pretty much everyone else. Chase had quite a bit of real on track race experience when William was still sitting in front of a computer screen. If the Camaro resurgence is real, I think a win will come soon. I think he could have won Vegas if Matty D. didn't tear the side off the 24 trying to get around him. When I look at young drivers, I tend to look at year over year improvement. Year two was vastly better than year one. They really seemed to miss the setup at Cali, but otherwise they have been real solid this year so far.
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I'm here to say that no, the resurgence apparently is not real unfortunately.
 
Man, tough crowd here. The guy is only in his 3rd year in Cup and some people are already writing him off. He didn't win a race in 2019, but it could be argued that he was the 2nd best HMS driver that year. He doesn't have a win this year, but aside from Bowmans win, Bowman and Byron have almost been equal this year. Chase is clearly the best driver in the stable, but Byron, Bowman and Johnson are all pretty equal. HMS just doesn't have winning speed right now and Byron's team seems to be trying a bunch of strategy calls to sneak in a win. Those calls aren't planning out and have caused him to lose some positions late in the races. He is the driver I root for, but I'm not being biased. I simply don't think he's near as bad as some are claiming he is.
 
Brentford said:
Man, tough crowd here. The guy is only in his 3rd year in Cup and some people are already writing him off. He didn't win a race in 2019, but it could be argued that he was the 2nd best HMS driver that year. He doesn't have a win this year, but aside from Bowmans win, Bowman and Byron have almost been equal this year. Chase is clearly the best driver in the stable, but Byron, Bowman and Johnson are all pretty equal. HMS just doesn't have winning speed right now and Byron's team seems to be trying a bunch of strategy calls to sneak in a win. Those calls aren't planning out and have caused him to lose some positions late in the races. He is the driver I root for, but I'm not being biased. I simply don't think he's near as bad as some are claiming he is.
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Sorry but I have to disagree with some of your opinion here. I think the 88 team was the second best team last year but they got caught up in a lot of unfortunate situations. The 88 team has made the championship chase every year that Bowman has been driving for HMS. Bowman would have probably had 2 wins earlier this year if not for a bad crew chief call with 2 laps left, and he had himself in a position for another 1st or 2nd in another race until he he over drove it in one turn and banged the wall. He has not had real good results lately but I think that has to do with the setup. I will agree that the 9 team is definitely the best HMS team right now and I think Byron needs some more time to prove himself. I'm not giving up on Byron yet... but I don't think he is on the same level as Elliott or Bowman.
 
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i think if he is still performing like this next year he is on his way out. fact of the matter is he's in jeopardy of not even making the chase and had jimmie not got DQ'd at the 600 and got covid for the brickyard he would be on the outside looking in
 
I don't think anyone here is writing Byron off, they're objectively looking at his performance 3rd year in, and thinking "hey it's time to GET IT GOING". I mean hell, he doesn't even have a Top 5 this year. He's in elite equipment legendary car number, the expectations are high. He showed a lot of potential last year, this season he's regressed, I think him and Chad have started to lose confidence in each other. It's crucial for them to find some form success in this back half of the season, or we could be looking at a CC change for 21'.

Don't care what age you decide to make the jump to Cup, that's your decision, you don't get unlimited time to progress for a decade, that's not how it works. It becomes increasingly difficult to hold onto a struggling driver, realistically if the owner/sponsors are devoted to him, 5-6 years max to find consistent production.

Also for Byron, I think not having Qualifying or Practice is stunting his growth a little bit, and washing out his qualifying advantage over the field. He had 5 poles last year, and seems to be a driver that does well when he qualifies well.

Still have confidence Byron will be able to bounce back, it may be without Chad though. He's run better the last 2 weeks, actually was up front a couple times.
 
Brentford said:
Man, tough crowd here. The guy is only in his 3rd year in Cup and some people are already writing him off. He didn't win a race in 2019, but it could be argued that he was the 2nd best HMS driver that year. He doesn't have a win this year, but aside from Bowmans win, Bowman and Byron have almost been equal this year. Chase is clearly the best driver in the stable, but Byron, Bowman and Johnson are all pretty equal. HMS just doesn't have winning speed right now and Byron's team seems to be trying a bunch of strategy calls to sneak in a win. Those calls aren't planning out and have caused him to lose some positions late in the races. He is the driver I root for, but I'm not being biased. I simply don't think he's near as bad as some are claiming he is.
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Byron hasn't had the speed that the 48 has had. I did a brief subscription to Motorsportsanalytics..I can't remember the PEER, but in terms of central speed rating, the 48 is the 2nd fast HMS car this year, and the 24 is clearly the slowest.

Chad and Byron aren't a fit. When Jimmie retires, I think Cliff Daniels would do GREAT with William. i like what I hear from that guy. He's got the Chad K confidence, but he's more supportive

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Turtle84 said:
I don't think anyone here is writing Byron off, they're objectively looking at his performance 3rd year in, and thinking "hey it's time to GET IT GOING". I mean hell, he doesn't even have a Top 5 this year. He's in elite equipment legendary car number, the expectations are high. He showed a lot of potential last year, this season he's regressed, I think him and Chad have started to lose confidence in each other. It's crucial for them to find some form success in this back half of the season, or we could be looking at a CC change for 21'.

Don't care what age you decide to make the jump to Cup, that's your decision, you don't get unlimited time to progress for a decade, that's not how it works. It becomes increasingly difficult to hold onto a struggling driver, realistically if the owner/sponsors are devoted to him, 5-6 years max to find consistent production.

Also for Byron, I think not having Qualifying or Practice is stunting his growth a little bit, and washing out his qualifying advantage over the field. He had 5 poles last year, and seems to be a driver that does well when he qualifies well.

Still have confidence Byron will be able to bounce back, it may be without Chad though. He's run better the last 2 weeks, actually was up front a couple times.
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Chad and Byron aren't working imo


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Efisher131 said:
Chase was contending for wins. This was Byron's first top 5 of the entire season. Massively overrated at this point.
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You may have misunderstood my meaning. I'm speaking of his perceived (or real) lack of aggressiveness. Maybe at some point he'll get tired of getting pushed around and then hopefully no more Mr. Nice Guy. He still seems somewhat intimidated by this level of competition.
 
Formerjackman said:
Still feel that way after last night? The moves he made to take the lead scared me to death, and would have made Dale Earnhardt proud. He COULD have rode where he was and been safely in the playoffs, but he decided to go and try to win the race. I think that shows something.
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This might be what springs him like what happened for Erik Jones. I agree he didn't seem to have that "fight", and that's really the key. He's fast but what makes guys like KyBu, Logano, Harvick, Hamlin, even Chase great is that they can get defensive or move someone in a clutch moment
 
JBone88 said:
Byron will be fine. Glad he finally got a win. Hate seeing 22 year olds cast to the scrap heap before they really get started.
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yeah but it's typical. The stat that he has a win in cup before Jeff Gordon puts it closer in perspective to what it is.
 
Hopefully he doesn't become one of those "can only win on plate race tracks" type driver.

Many a drivers have fallen into this category which often lead to them not getting their due.
 
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