What was supposed to be run on Friday, Saturday’s K&N Pro Series East championship race at Dover was slick as Collin Cabre went on to win the race, but it was William Byron who led the most laps in route of winning his first championship in his rookie season.
Byron went into the race with a 13-point lead on Scott Heckert and 14 points ahead of Austin Hill. Byron needed a finish of ninth or better in order to secure his first NASCAR touring championship. After leading the opening stint of the race, Byron finished in sixth-place, ahead of all his nearest competition.
Byron finished the season with four wins, six top-five finishes and 12 top 10’s. He clinched the championship by 17 points over Heckert. The Liberty University driver had the most wins of anyone in his first season behind the No. 9 Chevrolet.
“For this being only my third year behind the wheel of a racecar it’s pretty remarkable to be here,” Byron said of his championship. “I was pretty tense in the car. We just tried to finish as high as possible and get the points we needed.”
The 17-year-old is a member of the NASCAR Next program. NASCAR Next allows for younger talent the opportunity to race through the ranks as they try to make it to the Sprint Cup Series. Byron is the first member to win a championship as part of the 2015 NASCAR Next class.
Byron raced the 2015 season with HScott Motorsports. This is the team’s third straight championship in the K&N Series as last year it was Ben Rhodes to lead the team to a championship and in 2013 it was Dylan Kwasniewski who was the champion driver for HScott Motorsports.
One of his closest members is also in the NASCAR Next class with him. After facing a 14-point deficit, Hill applied the pressure early on in the race. He moved through the field, but on Lap 36 that all came to an end.
Hill’s chances of winning the K&N East Series championship came to a slow halt after his car slowed drastically with an engine failure while running in the third position. The two-time winner this season had closed up on the battle for the lead behind Byron and Heckert. Hill finished 27th, 56 laps off the pace.
It seemed like wherever Byron was, Heckert was in close pursuit. Though he was never able to get in front of the champion, he was able to apply the pressure. For the first half of the race the No. 34 was running in the top-three. In the second half of the race and facing an ill-handling racecar, Heckert slipped back to eighth.
With the championship under his belt at just 17 years of age, the future looks to be bright for Byron. It started off in 2014, when Dale Earnhardt, Jr. took a risk on a young 16-year-old at the time to compete regionally for his late model team. Just one short year later, Byron was the champion at a sport in which he is relatively new to.
Winning a championship at such a young age can only improve his status going into 2016.
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