CONCORD, N.C. - With NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 appearances in back-to-back seasons and 12 victories in the Next Gen era (2022-present), there should be nothing surprising about the string of success William Byron is riding heading into Las Vegas Motor Speedway this week.
And oh, what a place to come when one's on a heater.
Even by the standards the No. 24 group has set in recent seasons, this run, including a season-opening win in the DAYTONA 500 for the second straight year, is pushing the bar even higher. And a peek at the NASCAR schedule hints there could be no end in sight.
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“I know I keep saying it, but the No. 24 team is executing at a really high level right now," Byron said. "That makes me confident every time I get in the car. We’re heading to a track where we have a good notebook and have success at so that makes me extra excited to get there and see what we can do.”
And that should be a familiar refrain for a while. Byron has a win at each of the next four NASCAR stops with one at Vegas, one at Homestead-Miami Speedway, two at Martinsville Speedway and another one at Darlington Raceway. All but the victory at Homestead have come in a Next Gen car as well. There's been consistency there too. He has an average finish of 10.3 or better at each of those tracks since the start of 2022 and they all rank in his personal 11 by that metric (he's best at Vegas at 6.7).
Yet it's all only an opportunity to build on what has already been, yet another stellar start to a NASCAR Cup Series season.
Consider this:
- With a pole last week at Phoenix Raceway, Byron's average starting position improved to 9.25, leading all Cup Series drivers
- By finishing in the top 10 in both stages at Phoenix, Byron tied the all-time record by scoring points in 19 consecutive stages at a single track.
- Byron is the only driver to lead in all four events in 2025.
- He is one of five drivers with three top-10 finishes this year.
- Including the Duel at Daytona, he's accumulated 49 stage points, tops in the series.
- With 713, Byron has run more laps in the top 10 this season than anyone else by 159.
- Byron has finished in the top six in 10 of the last 11 points-paying events.
- He is second in average finish at 9.0 and, oh yeah, enters this weekend with the points lead.
Certainly, getting off to fast starts is nothing new for the 24 team. After all, nine of Byron's 14 career victories have come within the first eight races of a season. But as the squad continues to set new marks and with the path that lies ahead, Byron continuing to build on the early season seems like a pretty safe bet.
The grind of the 9
On the flipside, statistically speaking, maybe Las Vegas hasn't been a standout track for Chase Elliott in recent seasons.
But the No. 9 team has hardly been a bunch to lay down, no matter what the circumstances.
It was yet another workmanlike rally on Sunday at Phoenix, but Elliott battled through adversity to salvage a 10th-place finish, putting all four of the organization's entries into the top 10 in the desert for only the second time ever.
And it's been the story of the year. After running near the front in the DAYTONA 500, Elliott was caught up in a crash but managed a 15th-place finish. Again, at Atlanta Motor Speedway, the No. 9 quickly worked into the top 10 but was run into the fence in stage two, putting the team behind. Yet still, Elliott made something of the day, finishing 20th.
The following week at Circuit of the Americas, Elliott qualified on the second row and looked to have winning speed before being cleaned out in the very first turn, breaking the toe link and putting the team into catch-up mode the rest of the day. And yet, a couple of stage-three cautions and Elliott was able to put on one of the most furious displays of his road-course prowess to date, rising all the way to fourth by the time the checkered flag waved.
As it stands, having survived all of that, Elliott is fifth in the points standings. And he sees Vegas as an opportunity, not a deterrent.
“I’m looking forward to heading to Las Vegas this weekend. I felt like, as a team, we made a lot of headway on our mile-and-a-half program last year," Elliott said. "And really, last fall, I felt like that was the best we had been at Vegas in this new car.”
To his point, Elliott was running well inside the top 10 when he was swept up in a crash on lap 90 in last fall's event in Sin City. His three stage wins are tied for his second most at any track behind seven at Martinsville. Lastly, Elliott has finished in the top 10 in five of the last six events at 1.5-mile tracks.
Odds point to Alex Bowman? This trend does!
Let's not forget that Alex Bowman has a victory in his pocket at Las Vegas as well and, the 48 team has parlayed the momentum from the stretch run of 2024 into a strong start in 2025.
Bowman is just one spot behind Elliott in the standings and like Byron, is among the group of five that has three top-10 finishes to his credit in the season's first four events. In five starts at Las Vegas in the Next Gen car, Bowman has three top 10s and an average finish of 12.4, all in addition to that victory, which came in the spring of 2022.
But if one is a fan of freaky, fluky stats, we've got one for you!
Christopher Bell has won three straight Cup Series races going into Sunday. The last two times a driver ripped off a three-race win streak, it was halted the next week by ... Bowman.
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On both of those occasions, Bowman's victory came at the expense of teammate Kyle Larson and both also came during Larson's championship-winning season in 2021. Bowman picked up wins at Pocono Raceway and Martinsville that season, to put Larson's roll on ice, momentarily, anyway.
And if strange numerical anomalies are ever going to mean something, what better place than Las Vegas?
Then there are always the run-of-the-mill reasons: Bowman is gunning for a sixth-straight, top-10 finish at 1.5-mile tracks, which would be the longest such streak of his career and his four top-five showings at Vegas are his second most at any track behind only five at Dover Motor Speedway.
Leaving Las Vegas? Kyle Larson would rather not!
Oh yeah, and while we're here and talking about Las Vegas Motor Speedway and all, we should probably just mention that Kyle Larson has one, long, laundry list of accolades to lean on this weekend.
As dominant as the driver of the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevy has been at several tracks, there's a good argument to be made that it's been most impressive at Vegas. His three wins there are tied for the most anywhere with Michigan International Speedway. He's already second all-time in laps led at Las Vegas with 629 and 64% of those (405) have come in the Next Gen era. That's 157 more than anyone else in that timeframe.
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His eight top-three finishes at Las Vegas are his most at any track and his six stage wins there are the most of any driver and his most at any venue, tied with Homestead-Miami and Darlington.
"The track is great but also getting to come to a cool city is fun, as well," Larson said. "This is probably in my top-three places to come to.”
It's not hard to see why.
Short pits
- Hendrick Motorsports is the all-time leader in wins (10), top-five finishes (35) and laps led (2,425) at Las Vegas.
- With four wins at Las Vegas in the Next Gen era, Hendrick Motorsports has more victories at the 1.5-mile Nevada track than any team at any venue during that timeframe.
- Since the start of 2023, Hendrick Motorsports has combined to lead 54% of the laps at Las Vegas (576 of 1,072).
- After Larson's third-place showing at Phoenix last Sunday, Hendrick Motorsports has now had a car in the top three in six straight races dating back to last year, its longest such streak since 2021.