{"id":26721,"date":"2020-05-04T08:36:30","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T12:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/?p=26721"},"modified":"2020-05-04T08:36:33","modified_gmt":"2020-05-04T12:36:33","slug":"press-release-william-byron-wins-enascar-finish-line-150-at-virtual-dover-international-speedway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/2020\/05\/press-release-william-byron-wins-enascar-finish-line-150-at-virtual-dover-international-speedway\/","title":{"rendered":"PRESS RELEASE: William Byron wins \u201ceNASCAR Finish Line 150\u201d at virtual Dover International Speedway"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PRESS RELEASE: William Byron wins \u201ceNASCAR Finish Line 150\u201d at virtual Dover International Speedway<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

DOVER, Del. (May 3, 2020) \u2013<\/strong> Leave it to a driver who literally grew up with iRacing to make history at virtual Dover International Speedway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

William Byron passed Timmy Hill with less with six laps remaining, then held off Christopher Bell by .301 seconds at the finish on Sunday to win the \u201ceNASCAR Finish Line 150\u201d at the first Pro Invitational Series race at the virtual Monster Mile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was Byron\u2019s third Pro Invitational Series win of the spring, joining his victories at virtual Bristol and virtual Richmond. The \u201ceNASCAR Finish Line 150\u201d is the final event of the six-race Pro Invitational Series schedule at NASCAR tracks where races were postponed earlier this year due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Byron led a race-high 79 laps, but found himself in the pack late after taking four tires on a pit stop before the final restart. After making his way to the back bumper of Hill for the lead, Byron made the smooth pass at the end of Lap 144 on his way to the win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had to go on that last restart,\u201d said Byron, driver of the No. 24 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports and the pre-race betting favorite. \u201cFour tires at the end was the right call to be aggressive. I\u2019ve enjoyed this series but I\u2019m definitely ready to get back in my normal car.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NASCAR announced last week that it would return to its Cup Series schedule at Darlington on May 17. Byron and his fellow NASCAR stars are scheduled to return to Dover Aug. 21-23 for a tripleheader weekend, including the \u201cDrydene 400\u201d NASCAR Cup Series race on Sunday, Aug. 23.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Byron\u2019s racing career began in the virtual world of iRacing before joining NASCAR in 2015. Since that transition, the 22-year-old has won championships in the ARCA Menards Series East and the NASCAR Xfinity Series. He is still looking for his first NASCAR Cup Series victory since joining the series full-time in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never been in such a competitive environment for weeks on end with iRacing,\u201d Byron said. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely taught me a lot at all the tracks we\u2019ve run.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seven drivers led at least one lap in Sunday\u2019s virtual race, with nine caution periods taking up 40 of the 150 laps. Of the 36 drivers that started the race, 25 were running at the end, with 16 on the lead lap at virtual Dover, which received rave reviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think Dover is the most realistic of the [iRacing] tracks we\u2019ve run,\u201d said Fox Sports analyst Jeff Gordon, a five-time Dover winner in the Cup Series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hill finished third, followed by Erik Jones in fourth and Michael McDowell in fifth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI knew I was a sitting duck when William made it through the pack clean,\u201d said Hill, who also earned an iRacing win at Texas earlier this spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several stars from the entertainment world participated as pre-race dignitaries Sunday, including singer, songwriter and TV host Blake Shelton as the grand marshal, actor and singer David Hasselhoff performing the national anthem, author Jason Romano giving the invocation and singer Travis Denning providing pre-race entertainment. There was also a virtual fly-over, featuring four A-10C Thunderbolts from Moody Air Force Base in Georgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Saturday, virtual Dover International Speedway hosted the 125-lap Saturday Night Thunder event with drivers from NASCAR national series and other divisions competing in Xfinity Series cars. Anthony Alfredo, a part-time Xfinity Series driver with Richard Childress Racing, led 15 laps on his way to winning the event, topping runner-up Alex Labbe and third-place finisher Raphael Lessard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so cool that NASCAR and iRacing have put these events on for drivers to have fun and even learn some things for when we go back racing,\u201d Alfredo said. \u201cIt felt like real life to me for the meaning of it and how hard it was.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Follow Speedway news and updates on DoverSpeedway.com and keep track of Dover announcements via social media at Facebook.com\/DoverInternationalSpeedway, or on Twitter and Instagram at @MonsterMile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dover International Speedway\u2019s Aug. 21-23 tripleheader weekend also includes a NASCAR Xfinity Series race on Saturday, Aug. 22 and the \u201cGeneral Tire 125\u201d ARCA Menards Series East race on Friday, Aug. 21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For tickets or more information on Monster Mile events, call (800) 441-RACE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PRESS RELEASE: William Byron wins \u201ceNASCAR Finish Line 150\u201d at virtual Dover International Speedway DOVER, Del. (May 3, 2020) \u2013 Leave it to a driver who literally grew up with iRacing to make history at virtual Dover International Speedway. William Byron passed Timmy Hill with less with six laps remaining, then held off Christopher Bell by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[73,2,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eracing","category-nascar","category-touring-series-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26721"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26722,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26721\/revisions\/26722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}