William Byron nursed his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to the finish line at Iowa Speedway as his whole NASCAR Cup Series team held its breath that there was enough fuel left in the car to take the checkered flag.
After running out of gas while running third at Indianapolis Motor Speedway last week and while leading the race at Michigan International Speedway earlier this summer, Byron managed to save enough fuel to make it to the finish line and to hold off Chase Briscoe, Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney to win the Iowa Corn 350 on Sunday, Aug. 3.
‘How about that for some fuel mileage,’ a relieved Byron said after climbing out of his car on the start/finish line. ‘We’ve had our share of things not going our way with fuel mileage. We’ve been through a lot this year. It’s been a lot of growing pains. It’s been tough on us, but it feels really good today to get a win.
‘Luckily, the fuel was enough at the end. I think I ran out there. That’s why I stopped.’
Byron, who started second behind Briscoe, led a race-high 141 of 350 laps.
He took his final lead after passing his teammate Chase Elliott on a restart on Lap 277, but multiple cautions shook up the fuel strategy for many teams. Byron had made the earliest pit stop among the drivers chasing him down in the closing laps, forcing both the driver and the No. 24 team to walk a tightrope between having enough speed to keep the lead and enough gas to make it to the end.
Byron began the season with a victory in the season-opening Daytona 500 in February, but despite leading the points standings for most of the season, Daytona remained his lone win of 2025.
‘Our confidence in each other never wavered,’ Byron said. ‘Our speed’s been better than it’s ever been, and that’s a big reason why we stayed confident. We needed just one to go our way, and today it did.’
Briscoe finished second, Keselowski third, Blaney fourth and Ryan Preece fifth. Last week’s winner Bubba Wallace rebounded from damage earlier in the race to finish sixth. Alex Bowman, Carson Hocevar, Joey Logano and Austin Dillon rounded out the top 10.
Briscoe has now finished second in three of the last four races — Iowa, Dover and Sonoma — and thought he was in the catbird’s seat to pick up the win with Byron low on fuel.
‘It’s unfortunate, I was trying everything I had, I just didn’t have anything left in the tank,’ Briscoe said. ‘It just kind of died there at the end of the run.
‘I don’t know, we’ve been in position enough, running second like that, you’re going to end up winning some of them. It just hasn’t went our way the last three or four of them.’
NASCAR Iowa Corn 350 results
With starting position in parentheses, driver, car number and manufacturer and laps completed:
(2) William Byron, No. 24 Chevrolet, 350
(1) Chase Briscoe, No. 19 Toyota, 350
(5) Brad Keselowski, No. 6 Ford, 350
(6) Ryan Blaney, No. 12 Ford, 350
(33) Ryan Preece, No. 60 Ford, 350
(15) Bubba Wallace, No. 23 Toyota, 350
(16) Alex Bowman, No. 48 Chevrolet, 350
(7) Carson Hocevar, No. 77 Chevrolet, 350
(14) Joey Logano, No. 22 Ford, 350
(18) Austin Dillon, No. 3 Chevrolet, 350
(28) Ross Chastain, No. 1 Chevrolet, 350
(4) Austin Cindric, No. 2 Ford, 350
(12) Josh Berry, No. 21 Ford, 350
(8) Chase Elliott, No. 9 Chevrolet, 350
(29) John H. Nemechek, No. 42 Toyota, 350
(25) Erik Jones, No. 43 Toyota, 350
(17) Christopher Bell, No. 20 Toyota, 350
(9) A.J. Allmendinger, No. 16 Chevrolet, 350
(22) Tyler Reddick, No. 45 Toyota, 350
(37) Kyle Busch, No. 8 Chevrolet, 350
(20) Ty Gibbs, No. 54 Toyota, 350
(27) Chris Buescher, No. 17 Ford, 350
(10) Justin Haley, No. 7 Chevrolet, 350
(11) Denny Hamlin, No. 11 Toyota, 350
(26) Daniel Suarez, No. 99 Chevrolet, 350
(19) Cole Custer, No. 41 Ford, 350
(13) Michael McDowell, No. 71 Chevrolet, 350
(3) Kyle Larson, No. 5 Chevrolet, 350
(31) Noah Gragson, No. 4 Ford, 350
(24) Riley Herbst, No. 35 Toyota, 350
(21) Shane Van Gisbergen, No. 88 Chevrolet, 349
(35) Cody Ware, No. 51 Ford, 349
(30) Ricky Stenhouse Jr, No. 47 Chevrolet, 347
(34) Todd Gilliland, No. 34 Ford, 347
(32) Ty Dillon, No. 10 Chevrolet, 346
(23) Zane Smith, No. 38 Ford, 344
(36) Joey Gase, No. 66 Ford, 340