When William Byron began his first full season in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driving for Kyle Busch Motorsports, he was expected to have a few good runs throughout the season. The 18-year-old already had a championship under his belt when he won the 2015 K&N Pro Series East championship driving for HScott Motorsports in partnership with Justin Marks, so he had already proven he had the talent needed to win in one of NASCAR’s biggest series.
It took him five starts, but at Kansas on Saturday, he managed to hold off two-time series champion Matt Crafton for his first series win. With that win, Byron validated KBM owner Kyle Busch’s decision to sign him, and Byron became another shining star on the rise in NASCAR. Currently lined up with rookie teammates Cody Coughlin and Christopher Bell, Byron’s KBM predecessors include current XFINITY Series superstar and five-time race winner for KBM’s truck program Bubba Wallace and 2014 Rookie of the Year/truck series champion Erik Jones.
A lot of the success could be credited to the Joe Gibbs Racing engines that the KBM Toyotas receive, but let’s not sell the drivers short. Jones and Bell may be champions and Wallace may have been a multiple-time winner, but Coughlin comes from a long line of racers and has more than a few years experience in stock cars, while Bell, a former dirt standout, won at Eldora last year in his third truck series start.
How Busch came across Jones is a great example of how the KBM drivers are graded in regards to potential. In the 2012 Snowball Derby held at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Jones was able to hold off Busch to score his first win in the prestigious event. Busch immediately made a move to sign Jones to his race team, and it paid off within a year as Jones scored his first series win, then two years later scored his first championship.
With Byron, it may not be something as dramatic as Jone’s big break, but it’s obvious Busch saw how fast the kid is. He’s been fast all through the 2016 season, and although he had a shaky start at Daytona and an engine failure at Atlanta, he’s been mounting an excellent title offense and now that he’s solidly in the Chase, he can focus on getting more wins and bettering himself as a driver. With that, Byron could place an emphasis on being a championship threat and carrying on that winning heritage at KBM.
