MARTINSVILLE, Va. – William Byron proved emphatically Thursday night that he hadn’t forgotten how to drive a truck.

Making only his second start in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series since 2016—after a blown engine knocked him out of last year’s Nashville race—Byron parlayed perfect pit strategy into a decisive victory in the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 200 at Martinsville Speedway.

In his last full season in the series in 2016, Byron won seven races before moving on to the Xfinity Series and finally to the Cup Series.

With Kevin “Bono” Manion on his pit box, and with input from Cup crew chief Rudy Fugle, Byron brought his No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet to pit road for the final time on Lap 83 of 200 and took over the lead when the trucks ahead of him pitted at the end of Stage 2 on Lap 104.

The 24-year-old from Charlotte, N.C., led all but two of the final 96 laps and beat runner-up Johnny Sauter to the finish line by 1.138 seconds. Kyle Busch ran third, followed by John Hunter Nemechek and defending series champion Ben Rhodes.

“It was a lot of fun,” said Byron, who already has a Cup victory at Atlanta in hand this season. “Great crowd here at Martinsville. I’ve never won a race at Martinsville and struggled here when I was in late models.

“Yeah, just awesome to get the win tonight—a great truck tonight, the HendrickCars.com Chevrolet. Thanks to Spire, all the guys back at their shop. They don’t have a lot of guys, and they do it right, obviously. It was fun to work with Bono, have a little help from Rudy. Obviously, he knows the trucks pretty well.”

The race was a homecoming for Sauter, too. Making his second start of the season, the 2016 series champion was driving a ThorSport Racing Toyota for the first time since last year, his last full-time season with the organization.

Junior Joiner, long-time crew chief for Matt Crafton, returned to call the race for Sauter after retiring from full-time competition at the end of the 2021 season.

“I told Joiner today, I said don’t listen to me when I give you feedback on the first run,” Sauter said. “I called for an adjustment, and I shouldn’t have. I thought we fired off tremendous and just got a little too tight there at the two-thirds mark of the corner…

“It was the first in-house chassis, in-house body for ThorSport. To come home second was pretty solid.”

Sauter chased Byron after the final restart with 36 laps left but couldn’t match the speed of Byron’s Silverado.

The race featured 11 cautions for 71 laps. Zane Smith won the first stage wire-to-wire, and Rhodes claimed the second-stage win.

Chandler Smith, Crafton, Grant Enfinger, Zane Smith and Tyler Ankrun finished sixth through 10^th, respectively. Rhodes leads the NCWTS standings by four points over second-place Chandler Smith.

–NASCAR Wire Service

2022 NASCAR Season

As part of its 75^th Anniversary season, Martinsville Speedway continues its first-ever consecutive three race weekend of night races with all three premier series with the Call 811 Before You Dig 250 Powered by Call811.com NASCAR Xfinity Series Dash 4 Cash race featuring NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. on Friday, April 8 at 7:30 p.m. and the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 Cup Series race on Saturday, April 9 at 7:30 p.m.

In the fall, Martinsville will host the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season finale on Thursday, Oct. 27 and penultimate races of the Xfinity Series Playoffs in the Dead On Tools 250 on Saturday, Oct. 29 at 3:00 p.m. and the Cup Series Playoffs in the Xfinity 500 on Sunday, Oct. 30 at 2:00 p.m. In short track battles that can only happen at Martinsville, the fall races will crown the Whelen Modified Tour champion and set the field for the Xfinity and Cup Series championships the following week at Phoenix Raceway.

The ValleyStar Credit Union 300, the nation’s biggest, richest and most prestigious NASCAR Late Model Stock Car race, will return for an evening of intense competition on Saturday, Sept. 24.

NASCAR tickets are available for purchase today via phone at 877-RACE-TIX or online at martinsvillespeedway.com.

Stay connected to Martinsville Speedway on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the all-new NASCAR Tracks App.

About Martinsville Speedway

Founded by H. Clay Earles in 1947, Martinsville Speedway is the only NASCAR track to host NASCAR Cup Series races every year since its inception in 1949. At .526 miles in length, the track annually hosts two NASCAR race weekends featuring the NASCAR Cup Series, along with NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races in the fall. Martinsville Speedway also annually hosts the ValleyStar Credit Union 300, the nation’s biggest, richest and most prestigious NASCAR Late Model Stock Car race. For more information about Martinsville Speedway, visit martinsvillespeedway.com.

About NASCAR

The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) is the sanctioning body for the No. 1 form of motorsports in the United States and owner of 16 of the nation’s major motorsports entertainment facilities. NASCAR consists of three national series (NASCAR Cup Series™, NASCAR Xfinity Series™, and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series™), four regional series (ARCA Menards Series, ARCA Menards Series East & West and the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour), one local grassroots series (NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series) and three international series (NASCAR Pinty’s Series, NASCAR Peak Mexico Series, NASCAR Whelen Euro Series). The International Motor Sports Association™ (IMSA®) governs the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship™, the premier U.S. sports car series. NASCAR also owns Motor Racing Network, Racing Electronics, and ONE DAYTONA. Based in Daytona Beach, Florida, with offices in eight cities across North America, NASCAR sanctions more than 1,200 races in more than 30 U.S. states, Canada, Mexico and Europe. For more information visit www.NASCAR.com and www.IMSA.com, and follow NASCAR on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat (‘NASCAR’).

About NFI Consumer Products, Blue-Emu®

Nutrition & Fitness, Inc. (NFI Consumer Products) is an innovative consumer products company that manufactures, markets, and distributes the Blue-Emu® line of products for muscle, joint and skin conditions. Blue-Emu® products are made with real emu oil. In January of 2014, Gregory Pharmaceutical Holdings, Inc. purchased NFI Consumer Products and quickly capitalized on the Blue-Emu® following amongst consumers and expanded their advertising efforts to further accelerate the growth of the Blue-Emu® product line. In June 2014, Original Blue-Emu® Super Strength cream was recognized as the #1 selling over-the-counter muscle and joint cream in the United States. Under the leadership of CEO, Susan Gregory and guidance from EVP of Marketing, Benjamin Blessing, NFI has expanded the Blue-Emu® product line to include Blue-Emu® Continuous Pain Relief Spray, Blue-Emu® Maximum Arthritis Pain Relief Cream, and Lidocare and Blue-Emu® Pain Relief Patches. Today, NFI Consumer Products distributes the emu oil-based Blue-Emu® products throughout the United States, primarily through mass merchandisers, supermarkets and drug stores. The company currently distributes the Blue-Emu® product line through various retailers representing over 50,000 retail outlets. For more about Blue-Emu® by NFI, please visit www.blue-emu.com.

Source: Martinsville Speedway

Photo Credit: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images