Byron Holds Off Logano and Dillon to Win at Martinsville

William Byron won the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 from Martinsville Speedway on Saturday night.

Byron had a strong car throughout the race, but followed his teammate Chase Elliott through the first two stages. Byron finally took the lead on the pit stop at the second stage break, and the only time he gave it up over the final 200 laps was during green-flag pit stops.

Byron had to hold off Joey Logano and Austin Dillon on the final overtime restart after a late caution bunched up the field on his way to his second win of the season.

Byron said he knew he would need to be perfect over the final two laps with strong cars behind him.

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“I knew when that last caution came out...I thought everybody behind us would pit and luckily we…were aggressive,” Byron said.  “I chattered the tires in 3 and 4, and kind of left the bottom open. I was able to kind of block my exits and get a good drive off.”

Byron won Thursday night’s Camping World Truck Series race, and said he had always wanted to win one of most famous trophies on the circuit, a grandfather clock.

“Always wanted to win at Martinsville,” Byron said.  “Got two clocks this weekend, so I enjoy that.”

Logano said Byron did a good job defending the lead over the final two laps.

“William kind of messed up off of four and let me get to him,” Logano said.  “He did a really good job of brake-checking. I couldn’t accelerate off the corner and be as close as I needed to be down into 3 to execute the old bump-and-run.”

Dillon started 23rd on Saturday, and a strong long-run car allowed him to get to the front on a rare Martinsville race that went caution-free for most of the night. Dillon restarted third on the final restart, but he was forced to defend after he spun the tires heading to the green flag.

Dillon said he was disappointed he couldn’t capitalize on a car with such speed throughout the day.

“I like to pride myself on when we get in those situations as being clutch, and that was anything but on that last restart,” Dillon said.  “Once I got back in line there, I had some grip and I feel like we had good forward drive all night long. I just felt like if we got through the gears, we’d have a shot at him.”

“We’ve been working our tails off. We’ve been working really hard to make this car as good as possible. Want to get RCR a win and that’s what we’re here racing for.”

Unofficial results:

1. William Byron

2. Joey Logano

3. Austin Dillon

4. Ryan Blaney

5. Ross Chastain

6. Kurt Busch

7. Kyle Busch

8. Aric Almirola

9. Chase Briscoe

10. Chase Elliott

11. Austin Cindric

12. Alex Bowman

13. Erik Jones

14. Kevin Harvick

15. Chris Buescher

16. Bubba Wallace

17. Brad Keselowski

18. Tyler Reddick

19. Kyle Larson

20. Christopher Bell

21. Cole Custer

22. Martin Truex Jr.

23. Ty Dillon

24. AJ Allmendinger

25. Michael McDowell

26. Harrison Burton

27. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

28. Denny Hamlin

29. Daniel Suarez

30. Todd Gilliland

31. Justin Haley

32. Corey LaJoie

33. Cody Ware

34. JJ Yeley

35. Josh Bilicki

36. BJ McLeod

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