Over the years, NASCAR has had numerous drivers whose faces pop into your head immediately when someone begins to talk about the sport and its drivers. Petty, Earnhardt, Elliott, Waltrip, Gordon, Jr., Johnson, Busch, Elliott, Wallace, and more all come to mind. NASCAR fans have adored certain drivers for many reasons, including success, family history, and, these days, online popularity.

With all that said, sometimes a driver is subtle in the takeover as a “face” of the sport, such as William Byron. Byron has had a stellar, yet not so infamous, rise to the top of NASCAR. Byron started his racing career online as an eRacer on iRacing before moving to the K&N Series in 2015, where he won four times on his way to the title. He would then have a stellar rookie year for Kyle Busch Motorsports in 2016 with seven wins before winning the Xfinity Series title the next year for JR Motorsports while scoring four wins.

Fast-forward another year, and Byron would get the dream opportunity of nearly every young race fan: the chance to race for the most successful Cup Series organization in history, Hendrick Motorsports. On top of that, he would take over a newly rebranded No. 5 team with Hendrick’s most iconic number: the 24.

Byron’s Cup career would roll slowly, but that would change at the end of the 2020 Regular Season at Daytona. Young Willy B would go out and win the race, becoming only the second driver in the team’s history to win in the iconic No. 24 Chevrolet and lock himself into the 2020 Playoffs. Two years later, in 2022, Byron would have his first multi-win season after winning at both a newly reconfigured Atlanta and Martinsville.

Byron’s career would take off in 2023, where he would go out and dominate race after race, winning a Series leading six times on all sorts of tracks. From Speedways, a mile-and-a-halfs, short tracks, and road courses, Byron proved he belonged not only in the Cup Series but behind the wheel of the 24, and Byron does so as a soft-spoken, very likable young driver.

In 2024, William Byron is one of only two drivers in the Cup with multiple wins and is the series win leader with three wins eight races into the season. Following Byron’s first Round of 4 appearance in 2023, he put the No. 24 in Victory Lane in the Daytona 500 for the first time since 2005.

Byron has won on every type of track the Series competes on. He has been the Series win leader since the arrival of the Next Gen car in 2022. He is also tied as the winningest driver in NASCAR in terms of overall wins over the past three seasons, along with teammate Kyle Larson.

With his nine wins in two years, including his most recent one at Martinsville this past Sunday, Byron’s face has been plastered everywhere. From TV adverts to posters and, of course, all forms of social media, William has become one of the most recognizable faces in the entire sport. Byron shows no signs of slowing down in the near future, either.

Byron has easily taken the reigns as the top dog at Hendrick, but this one is for you, the fans. Outside of a championship, do you feel that William Byron, the 26-year-old driver from Charlotte, North Carolina, is at the top of NASCAR?

Image: Christopher Fisher/ Carolina RPM Photography