As far as Jeff Gordon is concerned, William Byron can break all of his achievements and records as two different generational drivers of the Hendrick Motorsports No. 24.
Sign him up.
This time, Byron broke a record previously held by Gordon as the youngest driver to win multiple Daytona 500s at 27-years-old, two months and 18 days over Gordon who was 27 years old, 6 months and 10 days when he won his second Great American Race in 1999.
“I hope he breaks them all,” Gordon said with a laugh. “I’m in full support of that.”
The comparison is easy because of their shared lineage but Gordon frequently shrugs off the comparison because it’s not really the same No. 24 team anyway. What is now the No. 9 team with Chase Elliott is actually the team that Gordon retired from after the 2015 season. The No. 24 team has a lineage that is traced back to the old No. 5 team with Kasey Kahne.
All of this is to say that Gordon doesn’t really treat that number like a favorite son and loves all of his drivers equally as vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports but Byron is making it harder to not draw comparisons.
Byron is up to 14 wins over eight seasons, and unlike Gordon, has won at a high clip in an era of near universal parity with a spec car since the 2022 season. He has two wins, and while a championship has eluded him, he has the championship race appearances to suggest that’s also a matter of time too.
So yes, Gordon is happy to see the No. 24 remain such an elite standard, but not for the low hanging fruit reasons.
“Well, emotionally, because I’m a part of it, so I’m happy,” Gordon said. “I love to see the 24 team continue to have success and Hendrick Motorsports in general. But I think it’s more special because I’ve gotten to know William and he’s just a good guy, and like this is a dream come true for him.
“It’s been a pretty fast rise to get here, but it hasn’t come without a lot of hard work. And he puts in the work, and there’s nobody more appreciative of it, as well.
“Yeah, no, I’m just proud of him. I know the fans that I get to interact with, there was a period of time where they were sad that I was not in there, and I can see their excitement now that that legacy continues on because of what William and the team are doing. Yeah, it’s great.”
So, while Gordon never placed the pressure and expectation of the car number on him, Byron felt it by default.
The legacy attached to that was 93 wins and four championships.
“Well, I have a long way to go,” Byron said. “What do I need, 93 wins or something? Yeah, honestly, just when I got in the car, I was super, honestly, uncomfortable with all the pressure and everything that comes with driving the 24 car.”
It was made even worse by the fact that Hendrick paired Byron with seven-time championship crew chief champion Chad Knaus in a pairing that didn’t quite work out. Then came Byron and his hand-selected choice to reunite with Truck Series crew chief Rudy Fugle and now they have taken off in a big way.
“Now it’s like, okay, we’re building our own team,” Byron said. “We have cool paint schemes, we have awesome sponsors. And it’s starting to all come together, and we’re really getting a personality to our team.”
But Byron credits Gordon too.
“He’s supporting it all the time, and it’s cool to see him so involved,” Byron said. “To see him on the — he doesn’t know this, but to see him on qualifying night and be down there watching, he’s at all the events, all the competition meetings. He works hard.”
Gordon joked that Byron needs to tell Rick Hendrick that.
Unlike Gordon, due to the era he came up racing in and the expectations of carrying the entire industry on his shoulders, Byron has also enjoyed the luxury of having a pretty normal life beyond what he does on Sundays.
It grounds him, even as he pursues a version of greatness, while also admitting it took him some time to come out of his shell.
“I’m still, like, a very normal person,” Byron said. “I feel like it’s just nice to be recognized for what you do in racing circles and people understand who you are, and I’m just trying to show that.
“I finally have gotten comfortable enough to show what I like and don’t like, and that’s just a never-ending process because I came from really — I was not in this sport at all. So I was very much an outsider, and I think starting to get my comfort in that and kind of overcoming some imposter syndrome of I’m a race car driver, I deserve to be here, that’s like a never-ending process really, and just being comfortable with that.”