Byron steps out of comfort zone, has 'a lot of fun' in Larson's dirt late-model event
BULLS GAP, Tenn. — For the first time in his 24 years of life, eight of which have been spent professionally racing stock cars, William Byron strapped into a Late Model and powered it around a dirt track.
Truth be told, his debut wasn’t always the prettiest. Byron spun more than once throughout the action-packed Thursday night at Tennessee’s Volunteer Speedway, including during his opening run in qualifying hot laps. But he kept at it. He even competed in not just one but ultimately two races.
“I could go do asphalt Late Model races and compete for wins, and that’s a little bit different than this,” Byron told NASCAR.com. “This was more just to put myself in a different environment and see what happens. So, hopefully, I can do a lot more of it and kind of learn behind the scenes, not learn under pressure so much. But it was definitely good to just get some experience around these guys and kind of know what I have to build towards.
“Yeah, it was cool.”
RELATED: See the scenes from Volunteer Speedway
Byron advanced out of the heat races into a B-Main, in which he finished 10th out of 11. His NASCAR Cup Series teammate, Kyle Larson, however, was the promoter of the overall event – officially called the inaugural FloRacing Late Model Challenge powered by Tezo — and was able to gift Byron his promoter‘s provisional, a guaranteed spot in the feature race.
The finale was a 50-lap shootout with 25 competitors. Byron came in 24th. Larson crossed fourth behind winner Mike Marlar, runner-up Jimmy Owens and third-place Scott Bloomquist.
“The field was really tough,” Larson said. “A lot of these drivers are every bit as good as what Kyle Busch would be in a Cup car.”
Busch is a two-time Cup Series champion, the only current multi-time champ in the premier series garage. Larson is the reigning titleholder.
Larson, who is just as successful in the dirt world as he is within the stock realm, knows one can’t compare a Cup car to a Late Model, especially when it comes to dirt. A Late Model is built for the surface type. Cup is not; it only races on dirt once a year as of last year. That weekend just so happens to be this weekend, with the second Food City Dirt Race at Bristol Motor Speedway scheduled for Sunday (7 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN, SiriusXM).
BRISTOL DIRT: Weekend schedule | Qualifying, race format | Cup entry list
That may have played a small part in Byron’s decision to enter Larson’s showdown, but it wasn’t the sole reason, as he himself noted earlier.
“It was cool for him to show up and do it,” Larson said. “Obviously, way different than what he grew up doing. So yeah, neat that he was willing to kind of step way out of his comfort zone and try something really different.”
This wasn’t really out of his comfort zone given his NASCAR history, but just last week at Martinsville Speedway, Byron ran just his second Camping World Truck Series race since 2016 — and won.
Afterward, when asked about the rather unexpected seat add, he said, “I‘m just having fun.” The spontaneous dirt adventure tracks more so there than Bristol prep.
It’s not always about winning, especially at the very beginning of a new endeavor.
“I was just trying to get up to speed,” Byron said. “I don’t have any laps in these cars, so just figuring out how they feel and what to do. But it was a lot of fun, for sure.”
