William Byron won his first Cup Series race of his young career on Sunday, as long as you’re keeping track of Pro Invitational iRacing victories at home.
The Hendrick Motorsports racer stayed out front through a heap of caution laps, and made the inside line work late in the race, to capture the victory Sunday.
William Byron wins eNASCAR race at Bristol
“I thought we had a pretty solid race,” Byron said. “Obviously there was a lot to kind of decipher through and try to get through, but I thought we stayed up close to the front. [I] was really proud of how we kind of did things, and thankful for Nick Ottinger, who kind of helps me on my e-sports team, and AXALTA for letting us run this cool paint scheme. It looks awesome. Hopefully we can it run it sometime in the real Cup car. I had a lot of fun.”
Byron ran a unique Axalta Racing paint scheme to kind of switch things up at Bristol.
It’s something that he and other drivers in the series are taking advantage of while running on iRacing.
Some drivers choose to run paint schemes that are similar to their current, real-life ones, while others really take advantage of the opportunity to put that sponsor on their car.
Landon Cassill chose to redecorate the area behind his iRacing rig so that viewers on Twitch and on TV – during cut-ins – could see more of the company’s name.
Redid my basement with @blueemu1 (you're welcome @mikejoy500—it's not a green screen!) pic.twitter.com/RiCd4XSJpI
— landon cassill (@landoncassill) April 5, 2020
Blue-Emu got a lot of exposure, from Cassill, on Sunday.
However, the company wasn’t very happy with the other driver that it chose to sponsor in Bubba Wallace.
Wallace was taken out in the middle of the race by Clint Bowyer, who came up the track coming out of turn 4 and pinched Wallace, leaving him with nowhere to go.
Wallace exited the race, not to the excitement of Blue-Emu.
GTK where you stand. Bye bye Bubba. We're interested in drivers, not quitters.
— Blue-Emu (@BlueEmu1) April 5, 2020
Tensions were high all day on the track.
Daniel Suarez and Kyle Larson got tangled up and ended up wrecking each other under caution.
Suarez had some choice words for Larson over Twitter and then went on to contradict himself later on.
Nice. pic.twitter.com/qnZpUR3nVM
— Always Race Day (@AlwaysRaceDay) April 5, 2020
Regardless, the number of cautions took a tole on the race, and allowed the iRacing veterans and advantage.
“I wish we would have a little bit longer runs because I think you would have seen the guys who really had it figured out,” Byron said. “I think Kyle (Busch) and Denny (Hamlin) and some of those guys would have come to the front. But unfortunately it’s kind of a short-run race, but really I think those guys are starting to get it.”
The series will be off next week due to Easter Sunday, however NBCSN is showing a short track series during each night of the week featuring some of the top Cup guys on iRacing.
