NASCAR star William Byron's debut Slinger Nationals victory is tinged by doubt

SLINGER – Chalk up another one for William Byron.

The 24-year-old driver zipped through the super late model ranks on his rapid rise to NASCAR, so he’s making up for opportunities lost by hitting a handful of big short-track races in his spare time this year.

Byron’s sixth win in seven starts came Tuesday night in the 43rd Slinger Nationals.

“This was definitely our toughest test so far,” the fourth-year Cup Series driver said. “We weren’t lights out but had a fast car and had the balance right at the end.”

This one also came with an asterisk.

Byron’s Wilson Motorsports car had aluminum bumper bars, while Slinger Speedway rules require steel. When the same issue came up in the past, track owner Todd Thelen said, cars were not disqualified but were required to run with a 25-pound weight penalty. Although the infraction wasn’t discovered until after the race, the car crossed the scales more than 25 pounds over the minimum weight anyway, Thelen said.

So despite lobbying from the team of runner-up Luke Fenhaus, Byron’s victory stood.

The first $20,000-to-win Nationals included a rough-and-tumble final 20 laps with Fenhaus, the defending winner and 2021 track champion, putting the bumper to 2018 and ’20 winner Ty Majeski and Majeski making a couple of nice saves before throwing in the towel.

Byron took advantage of all the action between the two Wisconsin drivers to lead the final 14 of 200 laps.

“We were catching them a little each lap but not really enough to pass,” Byron said as sprinkles of rain fell on victory lane. “I thought when they got bottled up I could just run the outside and had really good drive off (the corners).

“Got in the wall a couple of times, got squeezed a little bit, got it myself and bounced off and kept digging.”

Derek Thorn, a Californian racing in the Nationals for the fist time, finished third and Austin Nason fourth. Matt Kenseth, the eight-time Nationals winner and recent NASCAR Hall of Fame selection, finished a quiet fifth.

Majeski, who led a race-high 97 laps, finished 13th.

Byron, who was about four-tenths of a second off the pace in practice Monday, paced qualifying Tuesday but wasn’t sure how he’d fare over the length of the race. The fastest qualifiers were inverted, so Byron started 12th.

“I was really slow off the truck,” Byron said. “I was having to work at it and get a feel for it. I felt like maybe I got better at some things and then some bad habits too.

“In the race I was able to work around some guys and figure, OK, here’s what I really need to do. It all kind of made sense when the race started, but it definitely took a while.”

Majeski took the lead from polesitter Jacob Nottestad shortly before the midway break in a battle that also included Fenhaus. Any gap Majeski was able to build in the second half was quickly trimmed. Finally, with about 20 laps to go, Fenhaus began to use his bumper, Byron got serious about the outside lane and Majeski hung on as long as he could.

“Just hard-fought racing with Ty, beating and banging,” Fenhaus said. “You get bunched up and you’ve got to make a move because Byron’s on your butt and it’s a tough situation with him getting pushed out of the way.”

Fenhaus said he thought Majeski would have done the same thing if roles had been reversed but acknowledged Majeski might owe him one. Majeski would argue the first point but not the second.

“It is what it is,” Majeski said. “Luke’s got a ton of talent. He’ll win a lot of races. But lately he’s been losing a lot of races, lacking a little bit of race craft. He had the best car tonight. Thought if he would have played his cards right he’d have won the race and he didn’t.”

Fenhaus’ team contends in fact it did rightly win. Not on track but in the tech shed. Discussions among the teams and Thelen got heated.

Tom Ress, Fenhaus’ crew chief, said arguing over a couple of pounds of metal isn’t the way he’d prefer to win a race but the the rule book could not be more clear.

“You’re not supposed to have aluminum,” Ress said. “They had aluminum and they let ‘em slide.”

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: NASCAR Cup driver William Byron wins Slinger Nationals race