MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron raced his way into the Championship 4 by dominating at Martinsville Speedway and winning the Xfinity 500.

Byron entered Sunday’s race in a must-win situation, and that’s exactly what he did. The 24-year-old sat on the pole, swept all stages and led a race high of 304 laps en route to third victory of the season. Byron pulled off the race-winning move by moving Ryan Blaney out of the way with 44 laps and then survived a late-race restart.

“I mean, we just worked so hard, all these guys work so hard,” Byron said. “You put everything into Sundays. Sometimes you don’t get anything in return. That’s been the last couple weeks. Honestly, throughout the year, had some close calls.

“But yeah, sometimes life is that way. You just got to keep being resilient. We were. Just feels damn good.”

This marks the third consecutive season the No. 24 Chevrolet team will compete for a championship at Phoenix Raceway. Byron is still searching for his first-career NASCAR Cup Series Championship. He’ll go head-to-head with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe, as well as his teammate, Kyle Larson.

“Things have a way of working out,” Byron said. “God really tests your resilience a lot of times. We’ve been tested. Just unbelievable.”

Blaney finished second; however, that wasn’t good enough to advance to the Championship 4. He was also in a must-win situation. Following the race, Blaney felt the move Byron made on him was a fair move. Blaney had an opportunity to battle back on the final restart of the day, but his car had just faded too much to challenged for the win.

“Yeah, I look back on that long run before the last yellow where William got by me,” Blaney said. “I just got loose, trying to work through that. My rear drive was fading quick. I tried to manage a lot in the beginning. Yeah, just was starting to fade.

“I was trying to protect. Yeah, I mean, that’s just two guys going for it. I don’t blame him for taking that. I have kind of lost momentum. I would have done the same thing, to be honest with you. I knew it was going to be tight. I tried to crowd as much as I could.”

Chase Elliott and Ross Chastain finished fourth and fifth respectively. Kyle Larson finished fifth, beating out Christopher Bell by seven points to advance to the Championship 4.

VIDEO: Kyle Larson Advances To Championship 4 With Fifth-Place Finish At Martinsville Speedway

Rounding out the top-10 was Ryan Preece, Bell, Joey Logano, Todd Gilliland and Josh Berry.

One shocker heading into the Championship Race was that Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin each suffered mechanical failures during the Xfinity 500. Briscoe finished 37^th, and Hamlin finished 35^th after retiring from second-place.

VIDEO: Denny Hamlin Suffers Mechanical Failure In Martinsville Playoff Race

A NASCAR Cup Series champion will be crowned at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday, Nov. 2. The Championship Race will broadcast live on NBC at 3 p.m. ET.

Photo Credit: Mitchell White/TheFourthTurn.com