‘You never want to feel like you're going to have another chance’ – Byron

William Byron approaches NASCAR Cup Series racing with a one weekend at a time focus, and nowhere will that be more important than Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in the first race of the Round of 8.

“I think from my experience in this round, you never want to feel like you’re going to have another chance,” Byron said, “Even though there is another race next Sunday.”

A win in Las Vegas has always meant the most in the NASCAR postseason, as it guarantees a direct path into the Championship 4. Byron and his Hendrick Motorsports team would like to be there for the third consecutive season, but the emphasis on Las Vegas has never been as big as it is now, considering the other two races in the round are at Talladega and Martinsville. It's why Byron doesn’t want to leave it to feeling like he won’t have another chance.

“It’s just very important to capitalize on every opportunity,” he said. “I’ve always said that I look at it one week at a time, but especially in this round, I look at it that way because you don’t really know what your position is going to be like the next week and what’s going to happen to you.

“You don’t want to have any regrets that you left something on the table. We’re going to prepare the best we can every single week and then let the cards fall.”

Byron, the regular season champion, entered the postseason as the No. 2 seed but was tied with teammate Kyle Larson for the most playoff points. The first round “was a shock” to the team with three finishes of 11th or worse. The second saw Byron earn two top-10 finishes in three races, and his worst finish was 11th.

The goal entering the playoffs was to make more noise than the team had done thus far, but given their point advantage, they were able to adapt and manage each weekend as needed. Being able to execute races and finish where they should be is something Byron believes his team is one of the better ones at doing.

“I think, deep down, probably in the core of our team, it’s, ‘Hey, if we don’t have a good enough car to win, let’s make sure we do what we need to do to have an easy advancement,’” Byron said. “There were a lot of different learning [moments] with new tires and different tracks we hadn’t been to in a while (in the first two rounds). We had to learn a lot, and I know that notebook that we built over the last six weeks is going to help us a lot coming over the next couple of weekends.”

Byron begins the Round of 8 in the final transfer spot by four points.

“I think we’re right where we need to be,” Byron said. “I think we’re right in the position to capitalize like the other [seven] guys are, and we’re in a good spot. Obviously we’d like to have had a better last few weeks in the playoffs, but we’ve done what we needed to do. It’s wants versus needs.

“We’ve done exactly what we needed to do to advance, and now is when it really counts. I think we’re in a good position, we’re clicking as a team, and we just have to show up at Vegas with our best effort.”