From a Video Game to the Daytona 500
William Byron’s journey to NASCAR’s most famous race was anything but typical
For most, it starts with go-karts. That’s the typical way to become a NASCAR star. At around five-years-old, motorheads all over the South go with their parents down to a short dirt track where they start to hone their skills. Go to a short track in the South this weekend and ask those young drivers about their heroes. They’ll tell you that they want to be just like NASCAR-pros Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin, or William Byron, racing in Sunday’s Daytona 500, NASCAR’s most famous race that brings in a stunning 250,000 spectators a year.
Logano started racing carts as a 6-year-old. Hamlin at 7. But Byron? The driver of Hendrick Motorsports’ famous No. 24 car had a different path, one of the most unique in sports.
He got his start playing a computer game.
When Byron was a kid growing up in North Carolina, he would watch NASCAR races on TV and became transfixed. As driver Bubba Wallace told us in an episode of Greatness Code, “You get hooked off the sound.” The roar of engines, the tires screeching, the crowd oohing-and-ahing—it’s downright intoxicating.
But Byron didn’t come from one of those families where racing was in their blood. His parents didn’t build go-karts with him. Instead, every day when Byron would come home from school, he would log onto iRacing, a stock car simulator. He connected a steering wheel, gear shift, and pedals to his computer. That’s how he learned how to drive.
“It’s kind of like a flight simulator,” Byron explained of the game, which puts fans at home behind the wheel of a stock car. Before long, he started win. And win. And win. Throughout his entire childhood, Byron completed 683 races, and his talent was undeniable: he won 104 of them and finished in the top-5 for more than 200.
At 15, Bryon called a meeting with his parents. He handed them a five-page document, outlining a plan. “If I’m ever going to get on with racing real cars,” Byron told them, “I better do it.” And so, they went down to the dirt track. For the first time in his life, Byron got behind the wheel of a real automobile. “Honestly,” he admitted, “in some ways, it was easier. You could feel the car more.” He finished fourth that day. And just like he did on the simulator, pretty soon, he started to win.
In 2018, at only 20 years old, Byron made his NASCAR Cup debut, the highest level of the sport. His first race? None other than the Daytona 500. In qualifying, he notched the fastest time of the field and earned pole position, though he ultimately finished 23rd that year. He’s gone on to become one of the best drivers in the sport, finishing third in overall Cup Rankings at the end of last year.
But Byron has never won the Daytona 500. “I’m always the computer kid everybody looks at,” he’s said. If all goes right on Sunday, he’ll have completed his transformation: from the computer kid to the champ.
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