Byron’s points haul a long way off last year’s but he’s still positive about what’s ahead

Any given Sunday could be the week that William Byron and his Hendrick Motorsports team turn things around. The driver certainly thinks so.

Byron reiterated the belief Saturday at Pocono Raceway that they are "on the cusp" of it, and the sooner the better. With the regular season winding down, Byron is 12th in the championship point standings and looking at a tall – if not near impossible – task of being able to challenge for the championship, if the models are to be believed about needing to be at least in the top six.

“It’s been a tough go,” Byron said. “We were first in points last year at this time, so we just had it figured out, and we’ve had to relearn.”

It was a 41-point lead for Byron at this time last year after 15 races. He went on to win the regular season championship. But unlike last season, Byron and company are winless thus far. He has seven top-10 finishes and 41 laps led.

“We’ve had some really bad luck as well,” Byron said. “We’ve gotten in three crashes (recently). Talladega got taken out before the first stage. Watkins Glen, got taken out through the Bus Stop, and then Nashville, we got in a crash that I didn’t feel like was our doing. So, those three DNFs or close to it are very tough to overcome with this point system and honestly, the other weeks we don’t really start close enough in the first stage to get points.

“We’ve been really unfortunate, too, with the fact that qualifying has been rained out when we’ve had a bad metric. We crashed in a couple of those races, and then Charlotte gets rained out for qualifying.”

Talladega Superspeedway marked the start of a six-race stretch, bringing the team to this weekend, during which Byron has finished 30th or worse three times. There were two top-10s in that span, and then an 18th-place finish last weekend in Michigan.

“There are a lot of excuses you could make, but I think the biggest thing is we’re trying to learn things (like the new Chevy body), and I feel like we’re on the cusp of really good things,” Byron said. “It could come this weekend. Michigan showed some really good promise, and I feel like it’s right there. And I honestly feel like from sixth to about where we are in points is really achievable.

“Yeah, you go on a run and start scoring points, and you never know what can happen. Last year, we were averaging, I think, 36 to 38 points a race, so our bad weeks were better than even last week. So, I think we’ve just got to get back to that.”

The sixth-place driver in points is Byron’s teammate, Kyle Larson. The two are separated by 76 points.