It was looking like the perfect weekend for William Byron and the #24 team. Sporting Jeff Gordon’s last ride scheme for throwback weekend, the Axalta Chevrolet put on a heater in qualifying, setting pace and standing atop the field by the time the sun set on Saturday.

The #24 team knew they had a rocket and were poised to find victory lane for a 2nd time in 2025.

240 laps into the race, that sentiment didn’t change at all. In fact, it was probably bolstered. Byron had become only the second driver in the stage era to sweep both stages by leading every lap (the first being Chase Elliott in Martinsville spring 2022).

Then the thing that had become paramount all day once again showed up; pit stops and race position.

The Lady in Black started the day off with a grudge as Kyle Larson spun from 19th on his own and got immediate nose damage from the wall on lap four. It was a common theme for every HMS car besides the blazing 24.

A couple of Carson Hocevar spins wouldn’t phase Byron, as he restarted confidently again and again. Darting out to clean air was easy for the 24, and while battles ensured behind him, he only got farther and farther away.

Behind him, drivers such as Bubba Wallace, Chase Briscoe and Ryan Blaney would plug away in the top 15 and look to build on solid stage one finishes.

Green flag pit stops ensued around lap 130, but a debris caution for a rogue lug nut would flip the field substantially. For drivers like Wallace who had just pit, it set them back to the 20s where passing was ever so difficult.

The next challenger for the seemingly unbeatable 24 was the slick sprint car throwback of Christopher Bell. Bell had been steady all day and was one of the stronger Toyotas in the field. For the first time in 200 laps, William Byron found some sort of resistance from an opponent.

Despite Bell’s best efforts, the rocket ship that was the 24 cleared him quickly and continued his reign of dominance on Darlington’s rocky surface. With 207 laps lead uncontested, Byron would beat the record of 206 set by Jeff Burton in 2000.

When lap 244 came around, all it was gonna take for the #24 team to capitalize on history was one more clean stop. Perfect all day, all they needed was a routine four tires and fuel.

The stop plugged away and new leader Denny Hamlin raced by. Only one issue for Byron and company; The stop took longer than expected. This put the bad fast 24 behind the 20 of Bell and made one thing certain, the 24 was gonna have to find out what he had in dirty air.

The Big Mac inspired 45 of Tyler Reddick was the race’s first leader besides Byron with less than 30 laps to go, but lurking behind them was a motivated and fast Blaney.

Rocking his dads scheme from his only Cup series start, Blaney put the pressure on Reddick, causing him to hit the wall and make a mistake. Right as Blaney was gearing up to take the lead, Larson spun behind them after rear contact from Bubba Wallace, bringing out the caution to force NASCAR overtime.

An odd circumstance of a caution no doubt given Reddicks slip up ahead of them, but regardless drivers came to pit road and coming out of it strong was the ever opportunistic #11 of Denny Hamlin.

Hamlin in his Carl Edwards SportClips throwback would lead the field for NASCAR overtime and fight off a hard charging Reddick. While Reddick fought off Byron, Hamlin took advantage of the clean air and raced away.

Byron passed Reddick but saw his chance at history without an asterisk race away. Hamlin and his on-point pit crew took yet another race and continued the #11 team’s surge forward in the standings. Building off of his Martinsville win just a week prior, Hamlin has seemed to hit his stride.

“There’s two people I really love right now; My pit crew & Kyle Larson. Had a little assist there, so thank you” said Hamlin on the front stretch, declining a backflip inquiry by Reagan Smith.

The win puts Hamlin in second place on the regular season standings, trailing William Byron by 49 points. Speaking of Byron, the Daytona 500 winner scored a race high 56 points on the day which contributes to that cushion.

The Cup Series will go right back to short track habits next week at Bristol Motor Speedway. The Last Great Colosseum will no doubt bring many questions, and is yet another test for NASCAR to show how close they are to getting back the old short track racing that made the series what it is.

The Food City 500 will drop the green flag at 12:00 PM PST.