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NASCAR XFINITY SERIES MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 16, 2017

William Byron

Q. This year you get to fight for a championship. Talk about that.
WILLIAM BYRON: Yeah, it's really awesome to be able to compete for a championship. Last year not having that opportunity, it feels really cool just to be kind of part of the excitement, part of the weekend really. When you're not part of the Championship 4, you feel like you missed out. You feel like you kind of‑‑ it just feels different. It's fun to be here and fun to be part of it, so I'm just super excited about the opportunity to go out there and try and win.

Q. Over the week you posted pictures of you and Daniel Hemric racing late model stocks; how cool is it to see that you two are racing in the 2017 championship?
WILLIAM BYRON: Yeah, it's a lot of fun to know‑‑ it's just a cool feeling to know how we started, and being at the local short track routes and all the kids that are in that environment trying to make it to this point, to see the two of us be able to make it to that point is really awesome. We've always raced each other really hard, and we're going to do the same thing‑‑ I feel like he's somebody I know how to race, and we race with respect, but we're going to really, really race each other hard, so that's going to be fun.

Q. With two other teammates in this, when do you stop being teammates?
WILLIAM BYRON: I don't think ever. I think you just‑‑ you're out there for yourself, though. You're out there to try and win for your team. You want the other guys on your team to win if you can't, but you're going out there to compete for a championship for the 9 team. I think that's our goal, and we're going to race those guys just like we have all year, race them clean, and we should have‑‑ we're not going to have any issues. So we're just going to go out there, and hopefully one of us can bring it home.

Q. Do you lean on each other at all in the days preparing for the race?
WILLIAM BYRON: I think so a little bit. If somebody is a little stronger than another guy, you're going to kind of lean on that team, that person to understand what their setup is doing or what their car is doing to make them successful. But we're at this point in the season. We kind of know what we're supposed to bring to the track for our teams, and we're just going to go out there and try and do that.

Q. What do you recall of your battles with Daniel? He remembered when you were in the same division he might have gotten you about 60 percent of the time.
WILLIAM BYRON: Yeah, he definitely‑‑ he won his fair share of the legend car races, and it was frustrating at times because he would get the best of me. But we had a lot of really good battles. I remember what comes to mind the most is the one time that we kind of got tangled up with each other, we both felt bad about it, and then we both talked it out and worked it out and moved on. That kind of set the bar for how we were going to race each other down the road, and he's taught me a lot in my career as far as driving late models for him and then doing a couple races here and there. We've always been close, and it's fun to race somebody that you know how they're going to race, and it's really cool to make it to this level with him.

Q. Who would you be looking most to celebrate with, somebody who's impacted your racing career that might not be here this weekend?
WILLIAM BYRON: Yeah, you know, I don't know. That's a tough one. I think there are a couple people that are going to be there for me if we win, my parents, my system, this guy named Dennis Lambert, who was my legend car crew chief, took me around the country for about 70 races, 35 weekends a year, and that guy has really been close to me for a long time. I would say my family and him, and then I would say somebody that passed away a couple years ago was somebody who got me into Boy Scouts, Bob Mayberry, and his son and I played football together, and he was a pretty big inspiration to me to just find something that I was passionate about, and that was racing. So I would definitely miss him being there to celebrate, but that would be somebody.

Q. How did he help you with that passion?
WILLIAM BYRON: You know, he played football at Clemson for the national championship team. He was just somebody that was somebody inspired to‑‑ for me to pursue whatever I was going to do and somebody that gave me a direction.

Q. You graduate to Cup next year; what will you miss about the XFINITY Series?
WILLIAM BYRON: Yeah, I think probably the team aspect, the teammates I have. It still doesn't have a lot of the things that the Cup Series has as far as data and as far as things that you get access to when you're up at that level, so I feel like it's still a lot of driver feel and a lot of just going out there and just trusting your gut. I'll miss that part of it. The shorter races are fun, a little more things happening in a shorter period of time, but those are probably the two things.

Q. Are you going to stay for Sunday?
WILLIAM BYRON: Yeah, I think for sure I'm going to stay there and kind of see what they're doing and also cheer on Dale in his final race. It's going to be a lot of fun to watch that, and there's going to be a lot going on on Sunday, so it's going to be cool to watch Dale and kind of see all the teams compete hard.

Q. What have you learned from watching Grubb so far?
WILLIAM BYRON: I feel like our personalities gel really well. We're kind of very similar in how we're laid back and approach things, and I like a guy that has won races and championships, and that's what he's done. Hopefully we can kind of lean on each other in that aspect of being calm and collected, and just see what that brings us. I think he's won a lot of races.

Q. (Indiscernible). What have they seen out of the whole NASCAR program?
WILLIAM BYRON: Yeah, so they're actually, Mr.Falwell and some of the board members are coming this weekend, which I just found out about that a couple hours ago, so that's going to be cool to have them at the race. I think they never expected it to get to this level, but it's kind of been one step at a time. They didn't expect to continue to sponsor me up to the Cup level. But it's incredible, and I'm proud to have them. I think they're excited about it. I mean, I know Mr.Falwell said he got more texts after our Indy win than a lot of the football games, so that was cool to see.

Q. You're now driving a Chevy; what are some of the differences?
WILLIAM BYRON: I mean, it's all Chevys in our playoff, so that's pretty cool. Hopefully‑‑ obviously one of us is going to bring it home in a Chevy, so I'm excited about that, and just proud to represent Chevy this year and hopefully use the knowledge that I learned last year with everybody over there at KBM and TRD. Hopefully just use what they taught me and use that to my advantage.

Q. What difference would there be?
WILLIAM BYRON: I think honestly the day‑to‑night transition in the XFINITY Series is going to be the hardest thing. During the day the car handles way different. It's a lot slicker racetrack in the nighttime. The truck race was always at night, so that's going to be a big difference.

Q. Have you and Mr.Hendrick had any conversations this week?
WILLIAM BYRON: A little bit. I mean, just kind of‑‑ he's always there for me, and he's going to be there on the grid, and we're going to hang out a little bit Saturday night and stuff like that. That's kind of the only thing. He's kind of just letting me be and letting me handle my obligations with my team and kind of do what I've normally been doing. I think the biggest thing you've got to do is just do the normal routine that you have and just hopefully get to the racetrack and not let the pressure of the moment overcome what you've done all year.

Q. Why is the RC car stuff important for you?
WILLIAM BYRON: Yeah, it's just something cool to me. I'm so into racing, I'm still 19 years old and all I want to do is racing. To me what better thing to do during the week than go race. To me, RC car racing is that. I've got a lot of friends I made there, and it's really‑‑ it takes a lot of mental focus to do that for that period of time and win races. I actually won a race last night, so that was cool. It kind of gets me prepared for the weekend.

Q. Do people mostly leave you alone? Do you blend in there?
WILLIAM BYRON: Yeah, I blend in for sure. I feel like a normal guy. Nobody treats me any different, and that's what you want. You just want people to treat you the same. They congratulate me on my wins and stuff like that, but I'm just a normal guy, and they race me like that. That's the fun part of it.

Q. How is your pit crew on the RC racing team?
WILLIAM BYRON: Well, I took up tuning the cars at first, and then I've got a couple people that help me now because I'm not‑‑ I don't know shocks and springs like a lot of crew chiefs. I handle‑‑ I let somebody else kind of help me with that, but it's a lot of fun.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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