Race Weekend Central

Frontstretch Podcast: William Byron Hopes to Make It Past Opening Round of Playoffs

In this week’s edition of the Frontstretch PodcastDustin Albino and Mike Neff discuss a weekend of playoff racing at Richmond Raceway that saw Martin Truex Jr. score his second consecutive victory.

While Truex won, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Erik Jones was disqualified for failing post-race tech inspection for a rear toe issue. Instead of entering the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL three points out, the No. 20 team is in a must-win scenario this weekend. Albino and Neff chats the tech inspection process and in what ways it could be better.

The duo then discusses the good runs for Ryan Newman and Bubba Wallace. Newman enters the ROVAL 14 points to the good, while the No. 43 team earned its third top-15 finish in the past five races.

Last week, Richard Childress Racing announced it wouldn’t renew Daniel Hemric‘s contract at the end of the 2019 season, meaning it’s one-and-done for the driver. Was that the right decision?

Christopher Bell lit up the scoring pylon in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Richmond, so Albino and Neff discuss the last time a prospect has been touted as highly as the driver of the No. 20 car, as he’s moving to the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series in 2020.

Meanwhile, in the NTT IndyCar Series, Josef Newgarden won his second series title for Team Penske, so the pair of writers speak on the importance of earning a second title.

Finally, William Byron joins the show to chat with Albino about his playoff outlook, how crew chief Chad Knaus has challenged him this season, where he’s improved the most from his rookie season and much more. The No. 24 team enters the cutoff race this weekend sitting on the cutline.

Make sure to leave us a rating, review and subscribe to the Frontstretch Podcast: iTunes

About the author

Dustin joined the Frontstretch team at the beginning of the 2016 season. 2020 marks his sixth full-time season covering the sport that he grew up loving. His dream was to one day be a NASCAR journalist, thus why he attended Ithaca College (Class of 2018) to earn a journalism degree. Since the ripe age of four, he knew he wanted to be a storyteller.

Sign up for the Frontstretch Newsletter

A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.

Share via