NASCAR: How William Byron could’ve ended up with Joe Gibbs Racing

William Byron could have ended up with Joe Gibbs Racing had what happened just before the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series season happened a bit sooner.

As the calendar turned from 2016 to 2017, Joe Gibbs Racing had just experienced polar opposite finishes to their 2016 NASCAR season in the Cup Series and the Xfinity Series.

In both series, they landed two drivers in the Championship 4 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, with Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch in the Cup Series and Daniel Suarez and Erik Jones in the Xfinity Series.

While it was Jones who had already been confirmed for a promotion to the Joe Gibbs Racing-affiliated Furniture Row Racing for the 2017 season several months earlier, it was Suarez who began the weekend for the team by winning the season finale and securing the 2016 Xfinity Series championship.

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The following night, Edwards was in position to become a Cup Series champion for the first time in his career. But leading the race on a late restart, he and fellow Championship 4 driver Joey Logano of Team Penske made contact, contact that resulted in Edwards wrecking and seeing his title hopes come to a bitter end.

Busch could not secure the title either, as it was Hendrick Motorsports’ Jimmie Johnson who tied the all-time record held by Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt with his seventh championship.

When the calendar changed to 2017, Edwards was poised to make another championship run in what was set to be his third season behind the wheel of the #19 Toyota. But shortly thereafter, he made the shocking decision to instead retire from NASCAR before the season began, leaving Joe Gibbs Racing with an empty seat.

Suarez was already set to defend his Xfinity Series crown in 2017, but he was the driver to whom Joe Gibbs turned to fill Edwards’s seat. Jones had already moved to Furniture Row Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing’s only other full-time Xfinity Series driver was slated to be rookie Matt Tifft, who had signed in November of 2016.

Instead of replacing Suarez with another full-time driver, Joe Gibbs Racing only ended up with Tifft competing for the Xfinity Series championship.

Given their relationship with Toyota, the Kyle Busch Motorsports Truck Series have been somewhat of a feeder team to Joe Gibbs Racing over the years; they receive engines and technical support from the team.

Who drove for Kyle Busch Motorsports at the time?

William Byron and Christopher Bell.

To this day, Bell remains tied to Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing. He is set to compete for Rookie of the Year in the Cup Series this year driving the #95 Toyota for the Joe Gibbs Racing-affiliated Leavine Family Racing following two seasons in the Xfinity Series in which he won what was by far a series-high 15 races.

But Byron, who would have won the 2016 Truck Series championship if not for a mechanical error late in the final race of the round of 6 at Phoenix Raceway that kept him from the Championship 4, has not been a Toyota driver since 2016.

Had Gibbs known he would have had to replace Suarez in the Xfinity Series a bit earlier, there is no doubt that Byron would have been the driver to whom he turned given what he displayed throughout his rookie Truck Series season and in K&N Pro Series East the year before.

But because the Edwards announcement happened so late in the game, Gibbs had already lost out on that chance.

Byron, a former late model racer for JR Motorsports, had already signed a multi-year contract with Hendrick Motorsports, and he did it all the way back in August of 2016.

His deal was to compete for JR Motorsports in the 2017 Xfinity Series season. He ultimately (and not at all surprisingly) won the 2017 Xfinity Series title and was promoted to the Cup Series in 2018 with Rick Hendrick’s team, which is where he still competes. He is still seeking his first victory, but his 2019 season was a marked improvement over his rookie year.

Now, could Byron have still ended up with Hendrick Motorsports and JR Motorsports had Edwards announced his retirement earlier, like in April, which is when JR Motorsports co-owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. did in 2017?

Absolutely; he did sign rather early, and he did have previous ties to the team.

But as a Toyota driver competing for Kyle Busch at the time, a deal to be promoted to the Xfinity Series with Joe Gibbs Racing would have been an interesting possibility, one that could have had several ramifications as far as the Cup Series lineups of Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick Motorsports to this day and several years down the road.

Of course, if you really want to get into it, you can figure out how Byron moving to Joe Gibbs Racing would have affecting everything else.

Who would have driven for JR Motorsports in 2017? Would it have been Cole Custer after he drove part-time for the team in 2016? If so, would Custer have ever ended up at Stewart-Haas Racing, and where would he be now? Who else would have been affected along the way?

Additionally, would Byron be in the Cup Series yet with so few Toyota/Joe Gibbs Racing-affiliated seats available?

Would he have moved to Hendrick Motorsports anyway, but at a later date, and if so, would he be in the Cup Series this year?

There are so many questions to which we will never get to find out the answers, and for many, that’s a good thing.

For William Byron, his move to Hendrick Motorsports has paid off thus far — just look at his pole position total in 2019 — but he will be looking to take the next step in the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season by earning his first victory, becoming a perennial contender at the front of the field and challenging for a championship.

Without Carl Edwards stepping away when he did, perhaps this narrative is different.