Neither an early spin nor damage to his No. 24 Chevrolet could prevent William Byron from winning Sunday night’s rain-shortened Quaker State 400 Available at Walmart at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
With a storm approaching the 1.54-mile track, Byron surged past AJ Allmendinger into the lead on lap 167 and remained out from until an accident in Turn 3 involving Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Ryan Preece and Bubba Wallace caused the seventh caution of the evening on lap 178.
With Byron out front, the NASCAR Cup Series cars circled the track until the rain arrived and began falling more heavily. NASCAR brought the cars to pit road and red-flagged the race at 9:47 p.m. after 185 laps were complete.
With severe weather moving into the area, the sanctioning body called the race and made Byron the first four-time winner in the series this season. The victory was Byron’s second at Atlanta and the eighth of his career.
Daniel Suárez was second when NASCAR called the race, with Allmendinger running third. Michael McDowell and Kyle Busch completed the top five.
Crew chief Rudy Fugle called Byron to pit road on lap 125 under caution for a pileup in Turn 2 that damaged the cars of Erik Jones, Ross Chastain, Corey LaJoie, Tyler Reddick, Martin Truex Jr. and Ty Gibbs.
That enabled Byron to restart fourth on lap 165 after roughly half the field (cars that had not pitted since lap 95) came to pit road on lap 161. Two laps later, Byron had the lead.
Byron hardly looked like a winner after spinning through the grass on lap 80 and losing a lap getting to pit road. But the 25-year-old from Charlotte, N.C., regained the lost circuit as the beneficiary under caution for Kyle Larson’s spin on lap 92.
“It’s cool, man,” Byron said. “We went through so much throughout the night—spinning through the infield, destroyed the bottom of the car dragging it around the apron trying to stay on the lead lap. At that point, you just don’t have the grip, so I was real edgy back in traffic, but Rudy made a good call to pit there and then stay out.