After surviving the late scare of an overtime restart, William Byron was able to hold off Chase Elliott and drive away to win the Cook Out 400 at Martinsville, earning his third victory in eight races to start the year. Byron led a 1-2-3 finish for Hendrick Motorsports as the company commemorated its 40th anniversary with what turned into a dominant organizational performance over the second half of the day.
Byron looked to have the win well in hand already with three laps to go when John Hunter Nemechek's car suffered a brake failure, sending him into the Turn 3 wall and bringing out the caution. But in spite of that, it remained Hendrick Motorsports' day as Byron led teammates Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott to the finish line after withstanding Elliott's efforts to get the lead coming to the white flag.
Cook Out 400 unofficial results
- #24 - William Byron
- #5 - Kyle Larson
- #9 - Chase Elliott
- #23 - Bubba Wallace
- #12 - Ryan Blaney
- #22 - Joey Logano
- #45 - Tyler Reddick
- #48 - Alex Bowman
- #41 - Ryan Preece
- #14 - Chase Briscoe
"I just want to thank Chase for racing me clean there. It can get really physical at the end -- he gave me a shot, which is expected, but we all finished it off," Byron told Fox Sports. "Just so proud of everyone at Hendrick Motorsports. I grew up a big Hendrick fan, and to be here for the 40th anniversary and all that goes into just this organization, all the people -- it's all about the people. And I just want to thank Mr. Hendrick and Linda [Hendrick] and everyone involved.
"It's pretty awesome, pretty badass to win at Martinsville. We've been struggling at the short tracks and just kept inching up on it. I've got a great team and they just kept my head in it. It stunk to do a restart there at the end like that, but that's the way it goes."
After being the first car to hit pit road on a cycle of green flag pit stops, Byron's car came to life and he would supplant his other Hendrick teammates at the front of the field. Hendrick cars ended up leading 238 of an eventual 415 laps, with Byron's 88 laps led just beating out Kyle Larson's 86 laps led and Chase Elliott's 64 laps led.
In the process of earning the 13th win of his Cup career -- a mark tying him with another Hendrick driver in Tim Richmond as well as Dick Rathmann -- Byron also became the first driver since Kyle Busch in 2019 to win three of the first eight races to open the season. Byron has now won two of the last three races, with his victories at Circuit of the Americas and Martinsville pairing with his season-opening Daytona 500 win.
In earning its 29th Martinsville win, Hendrick Motorsports also had the extra satisfaction of becoming the first race team to ever score a 1-2-3 finish in the history of the only track that has been a part of the Cup schedule every year since NASCAR's first season in 1949.
A grand company outing
Byron's win was a fitting end to a day that served as a celebration of Hendrick Motorsports' ruby anniversary, as a large group of Hendrick employees past and present -- including several members of the team's original crew from 1984 -- came out to cheer on the team's four ruby red cars. Geoff Bodine and Jeff Gordon would serve as pre-race dignitaries and give the command to start engines, and Rick Hendrick himself had been slated to serve as the honorary pace car driver before knee surgery kept him from making the trip to the racetrack.
By race's end, the company was able to enjoy a banner day. In addition to their 1-2-3 finish, an eighth-place finish for Alex Bowman meant that all Hendrick cars finished in the top 10, leaving all three of their drivers besides Byron feeling pleased with the races they had.
That group included Chase Elliott, whose third-place finish was his best of the 2024 season and marked his second top five in a row.
"Obviously I wish we could've got it done, selfishly like anybody would, but it's nice to have a couple solid weeks and to be in contention there for a win," Elliott told Fox Sports. "I haven't been in contention to win one in awhile, so it was fun to get to that last restart and for it to actually matter. I enjoyed that aspect and I'm certainly hungry for more."
What wound up being an ideal day was put in severe jeopardy by the caution for Nemechek with three laps to go, a yellow that elicited a visceral reaction from not only Jeff Gordon on site, but also from Rick Hendrick himself watching the race from afar. Calling into FS1's post-race show, Hendrick admitted he thought his team's 1-2-3 finish was in trouble when the caution came out, which brought an end to the longest green flag run seen in any Martinsville race since the fall of 1996.
"I don't think I've ever been that nervous and was hoping that they wouldn't pit and hoping enough folks stayed out there with us," Hendrick told Fox Sports. "My heart now is just getting back to normal."
Hendrick's hopes would be realized when a total of nine cars, led by Byron, stayed out on the racetrack instead of coming to pit road before the final restart. The call by a select few to come to pit road would end up working out for drivers like Tyler Reddick and Ryan Preece, who parlayed fresher tires into top-10 finishes, but would burn Denny Hamlin who went from a sure top-10 day with 66 laps led and a stage win to finishing 11th.
Race results rundown
- The highest-finishing non-Hendrick car in the field would be Bubba Wallace, who spent virtually the entire race running in the top five before finishing a season-high fourth. Wallace's three top 10s to start the year are now the most he's ever earned in the opening eight races of a season.
- Despite struggling with an ill-handling racecar early in the day and getting stuck in midpack, defending Cup champion Ryan Blaney would end up getting his track position back and earned a fifth-place finish to snap a skid of three-straight finishes outside the top 10. Interestingly, all of Blaney's four top-10 finishes in the opening eight races of the season have been top fives.
- Stewart-Haas Racing would put two of its cars in the top 10 at race's end, with Ryan Preece in ninth earning his first top 10 since Talladega last fall while just ahead of Chase Briscoe in 10th. Josh Berry also showed good pace throughout the day with top-10 finishes in both stages, but he would wind up finishing two laps down in 25th due in large part to an uncontrolled tire penalty on pit road.
- While much of Sunday's race was run under the green flag and featured little attrition or accidents to speak of, several drivers would have their finishes greatly altered -- several for the worse -- in a multi-car pileup coming to the white flag. Among those affected were Todd Gilliland, who went from running in the top 10 to finishing 13th, and Austin Cindric, whose day ended up being spoiled with a 23rd-place finish after he had run up inside the top 15.
- One week after dominating at Richmond only to lose the race on the final restart, Martin Truex Jr. would see his late-race strategy get spoiled by the long green flag run and finished a lap down in 18th. WIth Truex now having not finished on the lead lap for the first time this year, there are no more drivers in Cup who have finished on the lead lap in every race this season.
- Austin Dillon came into Sunday's race with a new crew chief in Justin Alexander, but it seems all ills that plague the No. 3 team won't be cured overnight. Dillon struggled all day after his car suffered a power steering failure and finished three laps down in 34th.
Next race
It's back to the Lone Star State next week, as the NASCAR Cup Series heads to Texas Motor Speedway for the Autotrader Echopark Automotive 400 next Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET on FS1.
