William Byron claims historic win for Hendrick Motorsport in the Cook Out 400

William Byron takes victory at the historic Martinsville Speedway in the Cook Out 400 in the #24 car run by Hendrick Motorsports in their 40th-anniversary race.

This was a hard-fought win for the Hendrick Motorsports team as a caution flag came out with only three laps to go, leading to a second overtime finish in the last two races.

Byron claimed his third win of the season today with previous wins at Daytona and COTA. But even more impressively the Hendrick Motorsports team managed to round out a 1-2-3 finish for the first ever time at Martinsville.

Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott finished in second and third place. Bubba Wallace and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top five places after 400 laps.

Joey Logano, Tyler Reddick, Alex Bowman, Ryan Preece and Chase Briscoe rounded out the top ten. Martin Truex Jr led the Championship coming into this round but only managed to finish in 18th place.

Larson led the drivers away at the start of the 400 laps after claiming pole position by 0.001 seconds yesterday.

The first lead change of the race did not occur until the 88th lap of the race, the #22 car of Joey Logano jumped up five places in the pits and made his way into the lead ahead of Larson.

Lap 112 saw the first caution of the race, which was not for a stage end. This was because one of the most consistent drivers this season, Christopher Bell, had to dive into the pits due to damage to the front right side of his car after his wheel nut came off.

After the second pit stop in the race, at the beginning of the third and final stage, Hamlin maintained his lead position as he had previously taken over the lead at the end of the second stage. However, the most remarkable progress was made by Ryan Blaney, who impressively advanced 12 places up the order from 20th to eighth.

During the first stage of the race, Kyle Larson was the dominant driver. He led the field for all 80 laps of the stage, winning his fourth stage of the season and his first-ever stage win at Martinsville.

Stage Two of the race was conquered by Denny Hamlin after he led 11 laps out of a total of 100 in the second stage. After the early domination from Larson, the race lead had changed hands with Logano taking over. However, late in the second stage, the lead changed hands again as Hamlin took over.