Optimist William Byron made the NASCAR playoffs — and thinks the Panthers can, too
William Byron is only 22 and he’s a born optimist — witness his prediction for his beloved Carolina Panthers this season.
Nevertheless, the NASCAR driver from Charlotte had gotten a little impatient over the past three years.
Byron started racing full-time in the NASCAR Cup series in 2018. Until this past weekend, he hadn’t won a single Cup race. If you were counting, he was 0-for-97. All the people deeply invested in Byron — his family, his race team at Hendrick Motorsports, his sponsors at Liberty University — had yet to see the ultimate payoff. Seeing the glass as half-full was still possible for Byron, but the water was clouding a little.
Then came Saturday night in Daytona Beach, a race in which Byron performed beautifully in the clutch and advanced to NASCAR’s 16-driver playoffs with his first-ever Cup victory.
Said Byron when we spoke Monday: “You kind of want to validate all the people and the things have gotten you to this point. ... Now I feel like we can really get to work and not have that (no Cup victories) stigma kind of attached to me. It’s great … A lot of relief.”
Except for the lack of Victory Lane appearances once he got into the major leagues, Byron’s story has mostly been storybook. He grew up in Charlotte, once trick-or-treating at future Hendrick teammate Jimmie Johnson’s house. Byron got Johnson to autograph the pillowcase he was using to carry his candy in that night.
‘A little too calculated’
Byron became a champion iRacer and then a fine Legends car racer, as well as an Eagle Scout and a 2016 Charlotte Country Day graduate. He said he visited the Hendrick Motorsports race shop in Concord at age 12, as a fan. Several years later, he had caught the eye of hall-of-fame owner Rick Hendrick, whose stable of drivers was iconic but aging.
After moving rapidly through NASCAR’s lower ranks, Byron now drives the No. 24 stock Cup car made famous by Jeff Gordon. He tweeted Tuesday that he is now signed to drive that car through the 2022 season.
As a driver, Byron said, his greatest strength may also sometimes be a weakness.
“It’s kind of in my DNA to study and learn,” said Byron, who is working toward a business administration degree from Liberty with online classes. “ ... My biggest strength is a willingness to learn and kind of adapt and grow. So I’m pretty calculated. I think that that also hurts me sometimes, because I’m a little too calculated.”
Still, Byron has made the playoffs for the second straight season, following an 11th-place finish in the points standings in 2019.
“Last year, we just were one race away … from advancing to the round of eight,” Byron said. “So our goal is definitely the round of eight this year, to get to that. And I think to make the Final Four, you’ve just got to see how that plays out.”
Asked to assess his chance of winning the whole thing, Byron replied: “Good.”
Liberty connection
Byron’s connections with Liberty include some ties with the Falwell family. Bill Byron, William’s father, is the managing partner of Byron Financial in Charlotte and knew the late televangelist Jerry Falwell Sr. — who founded Liberty in 1971. Following his father’s death, Jerry Falwell Jr. took over as Liberty’s president in 2007.
In 2017, a NASCAR-themed event at Liberty was held that featured William Byron as one of its stars. Hendrick and Gordon were on-stage, too. Falwell Jr. thanked Bill Byron publicly during that event for once putting together a life insurance package for his father, one that kept the school on solid financial footing following Falwell’s death.
Liberty has sponsored William Byron’s race car in one way or another since 2014, when Byron started taking online classes at the private Christian college while still in high school in Charlotte. Byron lived on-campus at Liberty for a semester and has taken online classes steadily during his racing career. He’s about a year away from obtaining his college degree, he said.
The school’s current sponsorship contract with Byron carries through the 2021 season, Byron said.
Falwell Jr. has been involved in a series of personal scandals that led to his resignation as Liberty’s president last week. Liberty released a statement Monday saying that it would conduct a full investigation of Falwell Jr.’s 13-year tenure and what the university called “a lack of spiritual stewardship.”
“I’m praying for his family,” Byron said in our interview of Falwell. “It’s obviously a tough time for them.”
As for Liberty itself, Byron said he loves the place, extolling its “100,000 students” taking online classes and the numerous Liberty interns that have excelled at Hendrick Motorsports. He wore a Liberty shirt for our interview.
A Panthers prediction
Byron’s sponsorship deal with Liberty wasn’t dependent on Falwell and remains unscathed. And Byron’s own life is on an upswing. He’s optimistic enough not only to predict good things for himself in the playoffs, but also for his favorite NFL team — the Carolina Panthers, who are widely predicted to finish in the cellar of the NFC South in 2020.
Not so fast, said Byron, adding that he recently met Carolina coach Matt Rhule. Byron said he dug Rhule’s college-coaching background and believed it would be helpful. (Rhule said apologetically on Tuesday that he didn’t remember the meeting, adding that he doesn’t remember much before training camp began). Byron also said that former Panthers wide receiver Steve Smith had filmed a video for NASCAR’s playoffs that included the driver. As for the current Panthers:
“Teddy Bridgewater is a good quarterback,” Byron said. “I think he could fit in pretty well. We’re going to struggle on defense, I feel like to start the year because we don’t have Luke (Kuechly). ... But if they can put a couple of good wins together at the beginning of the season, I think they can really make the (NFL playoffs as a) wild card.”
The Panthers — who finished 5-11 in 2019 after losing their last eight games in a row — as a wild card?! The odds of that may not be much better than of Byron winning the 2020 NASCAR Cup championship outright in a season dominated by Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin. Those two have won a combined 13 of the series’ 26 races already.
Then again, the chances of Byron winning at Daytona last weekend didn’t seem that good, either.
“I grew up here,” Byron said of Charlotte. “And it brings a lot of pride to think about all that is happening.”
Hey, he’s 22, he’s happy and he just won his first Cup race. The guy’s an optimist. And if he gets that Panthers’ prediction right, too, then I’m truly sold on him.
This story was originally published September 1, 2020 at 6:00 PM.
