CONCORD, N.C. – For William Byron, Mother’s Day weekend was nearly a storybook one.
On Thursday, a three-year contract extension was announced in a deal that will keep him behind the wheel of the No. 24 Axalta Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 through the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season. Then on Saturday, he won in a Super Late Model at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway.
And on Sunday, well you probably know what happened at Darlington Raceway by now. Leading with two laps to go, Byron's No. 24 Axalta Throwback Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 got knocked in the bumper from Joey Logano in turn three. The result of the hit saw Byron drift up into the wall while Logano drove past for the eventual win. The 24-year-old would finish the race 13th.
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The two had raced in close quarters just after the lap 268 restart and that racing saw Logano brush the wall off of turn two. Byron took the lead for the first time on the day on that lap.
"We were really close off of (turn) two and I think it spooked him and got him tight; and he was right against the wall and I got the lead," Byron said of Logano. "He does this stuff all the time. I've seen it with other guys. He drove in there 10 mph too fast, and with these Next Gen cars, he slammed me so hard, it knocked the whole right side off the car and there was no way to make the corner."
Byron later added, "Obviously at the end, the right rear started to go away; and yeah, he didn't even make it a contest."
His day at Darlington did bring him into a tie for second in the point standings and he is now 65 markers behind teammate Chase Elliott.
The potential race win would have been made even sweeter coming on Mother’s Day. Byron’s mother, Dana, was diagnosed with a tumor on the left side of her brain last spring following the 2021 Martinsville Speedway race weekend. Her cancer is now in remission.
"My heart just stopped," Byron said when recounting the events of last year following his win at Martinsville last month. "I was just like, man, I couldn’t deal with the emotion of that. It was hard to process. I’d say the next few days after that I didn’t think about racing at all. It was all about what was going on."
He dedicated the win to his mother, a year after her diagnosis. Dana and his dad Bill were at that race and were able to celebrate with him in victory lane.
“I’m pretty close to them," the Charlotte, North Carolina, native said of his parents last month. "I’ve got a great supporting cast with Max and my girlfriend Erin and my sister Kathryn. I have a great group of people around me that I feel like when things were tough in racing and in life, it’s easy to go to them and talk to them."
FOX Sports ran a feature on the Byron family that you can watch below.
The busy week continues for Byron with The William Byron Charity Golf Tournament on Monday in Cornelius, North Carolina. The event benefits Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Carolinas, an organization with the mission to provide children facing adversity with strong and enduring, professionally supported one-to-one relationships that change their lives for the better, forever. Last year’s event saw Byron help raise $242,417 for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Carolinas.