For the first time in five years, William Byron will run a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race. On Thursday, Rackley WAR announced the introduction of a second truck, the #27 Chevrolet Silverado, for Byron at Nashville Superspeedway on 18 June.
“I am excited for the opportunity to get behind the wheel in the Camping World Truck Series again,” said Byron. “I haven’t been in a truck for a while, so the opportunity to do so with Rackley WAR allows me to get back and accustomed again.
“I have never raced at Nashville Superspeedway before either. While I think that the NASCAR Cup Series entries will handle differently compared to the trucks, the Rackley Roofing 200 will give me a chance to learn a few things on my end that I may not be able to try. Plus, this gives me a chance to get more acclimated to the track overall – I can learn the braking zones, pit road entrance and exit, and the overall characteristics of Nashville Superspeedway.”
Byron is not the only one who’s new to Nashville Superspeedway as the Cup Series’ trip there will be its first. The Trucks and Xfinity Series last raced at the Lebanon, Tennessee oval in 2011.
Although Byron’s Truck experience only lasted one year in 2016 (after performing a one-off the previous season), it was a dominant campaign for the then-18-year-old as he won a series-high seven races and was the only driver with more than four wins. He finished his lone full Truck campaign fifth in points (he missed the Championship Round due to an engine failure in the penultimate race) and earned Rookie of the Year honours. Said season was also his only one in a national series outside of the Hendrick Motorsports/Chevrolet family as he was with Kyle Busch Motorsports and Toyota.
He continued to work his way up the ladder, winning the 2017 Xfinity Series championship before reaching Cup in 2018. Byron has enjoyed a strong start to the 2021 season with twelve top tens, six top fives, a win, and a third-place points position after fifteen races; his top tens are already two shy of his career best set in 2020. Eleven of those top tens came consecutively from his Homestead win in late February to Dover in mid-May.
Rackley WAR, a new team for the 2021 season, recently replaced Timothy Peters with Josh Berry as the driver of the full-time #25, with Berry scheduled to run the next three events. Team co-owner Willie Allen will serve as Byron’s crew chief.
“We are excited to have William Byron join our team for the Rackley Roofing 200,” Allen added. Rackley Roofing president Curtis Sutton co-owns Rackley WAR. “He is a very talented driver and we are looking forward to working with him. His experience in the top level of NASCAR is valuable to Rackley WAR as a team.”
Byron is the third Hendrick driver to run a Truck race in 2021. Kyle Larson, who is ahead of Byron by one spot in the Cup standings, crashed out at Bristol Dirt in March for Niece Motorsports while Chase Elliott is set to run the Texas event the week before Nashville for GMS Racing. Consequently, Alex Bowman will be the only member of the quartet with no Truck starts this year so far; he last raced in the series in 2017.
