TOYOTA NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS)
William Byron – Notes & Quotes
Iowa Speedway – June 17, 2016
Kyle Busch Motorsports driver William Byron was made available to the media at Iowa Speedway:
WILLIAM BYRON, No. 9 Liberty University Toyota Tundra, Kyle Busch Motorsports
How will your familiarity with Iowa Speedway help you this weekend?
“I think it’s going to help a lot. When I came here the first time, coming to Iowa was the biggest track I’d ever been to, so I now have a few mile-and-a-halves and Daytona to lean on – and Pocono – places that are really big race tracks for us. This is going to act more like a short track for me now coming for the third time, but like you said it’s a big help to understand the race track and have a feel for what we need in the race car. Even though they’re totally different vehicles there’s still a lot that can apply and hopefully I can apply that and get a win this weekend.”
Are you a little more relaxed now that you have the second win this year?
“Yeah, I think so. I haven’t really thought about the Chase honestly before we got that second win because I didn’t want to think about the potential that there would be eight different winners or more. So, it’s good to have that win and be able to focus on what we can do to try and win more races. I think our race team is always looked at as just trying to do the best we can each week, and as a rookie that’s your goal, is just to try and get the best finish you can each time. We haven’t been able to try a lot of different things but now, with having two wins, there’s more confidence that comes with that and we can go out and try to accomplish some more things.”
Does winning two races change the team’s strategy on how you will race leading up to the Chase?
“I’m a little bit surprised – I was surprised with the first win, how quickly it came and then I was pretty surprised last week with being able to move up the race track and try different lines. That’s something that I don’t have a background doing that like some of these guys with Rico (Abreu) and Christopher (Bell) that are used to searching around on the dirt track. It’s enabled our race team to try some new things and I’m just really fortunate this year to have Liberty University and be in a Toyota Tundra. This is honestly a blast for me to come to all these different race tracks and be able to just travel around, so I’m enjoying it.”
How did you get Liberty University as your sponsor?
“So, I was a year into my racing career when I was 16 years old. Just a few years ago I started racing Legends cars when I was 15 and before that I did iRacing on the computer — did the computer simulation. I wouldn’t have started in racing if I didn’t have iRacing. That was a big part of my learning experience was just being able to understand how a race car feels even though it’s obviously not a real race car. So, when I approached Liberty University they have a huge online program that I knew about. They have 100,000 online students and that’s a big part of what they did. So, I was able to promote their online schooling program through how I got started online racing, it’s kind of a similarity there and they’ve been able to use that as promotion and I’ve also been able to take six online classes with them over the course of a couple years.”
What was unique about your high school and the students that attend there?
“The cool thing about my school is that there’s a lot of kids that have done a lot of great things at my school, so it’s interesting going to school. When I was a senior, there’s a kid going to MIT that’s playing basketball there and there’s a lot of overachievers. So, it’s funny being able to I guess talk to some other overachievers or whatever you want to call it. I just enjoy going to school with my friends and being a normal kid.”
Are you surprised that your relationship with your crew chief has taken off the way that it has so quickly?
“Yeah, you know with Rudy (Fugle, crew chief), he has such an open mind to a young race car driver and I’ve really been impressed by that because going into it obviously they won the championship last year you would think, ‘Well, he has these expectations of oh, this kid is a rookie and what’s it going to be like?’ And, he’s really had an open mind approach to it like we are a rookie team and he’s taken me under his wing and been able to coach me each week. We have high expectations but I don’t think those expectations are a burden for me and I never look at it that way. He’s always looked at it as a rookie team and that’s really helpful for me.”
