William Byron saved enough gas and held off Chase Briscoe to win Sunday’s (Aug. 3) Iowa Corn 350 at Iowa Speedway.
Byron had to save fuel and hold the lead over the race’s final green-flag stint after a rash of yellow flags put an abundance of strategies into play throughout the field.
Neither Briscoe nor Brad Keselowski ran Byron down, however, and the Daytona 500 champion coasted to his second NASCAR Cup Series win of 2025.
“How about that for some fuel mileage,” Byron told USA Network. “We’ve had our fair share of things not go our way with fuel mileage. Super thankful for Rudy and all these guys.”
Briscoe, Keselowski, Ryan Blaney, Ryan Preece, Bubba Wallace, Alex Bowman, Carson Hocevar, Joey Logano and Austin Dillon rounded out the top 10 in second through 10th, respectively.
“There at the end, I thought I was running William down,” Briscoe said. “I got there and kind of stalled out.
Keselowski led 68 laps and won stages one and two.
“Just the way the yellows fell, we had so many yellows in stage three that it got the 24 and the 19 to where they could make it on fuel pitting way outside the window,” Keselowski said. “Just couldn’t get back by them. That was as far as I could get.”
The first caution for cause occurred on lap 170, when Shane van Gisbergen got loose on corner entry in turn 1 and backed into the outside wall.
A rash of cautions then occurred within 50 laps of each other.
On lap 204, contact from Todd Gilliland sent Ty Dillon hard into the outside wall in turn 2. Denny Hamlin spun on lap 220 after getting loose in turn 3 on the inside of AJ Allmendinger. On lap 229, Zane Smith made hard contact with the outside wall in turn 1 after contact with Hocevar. On lap 243, contact from Briscoe sent Erik Jones spinning on the frontstretch.
On Lap 253, Christopher Bell and Tyler Reddick went around in turn 2 after contact from Briscoe. The yellow flew again with 69 laps to go for debris.
Overall, the race featured a total of 12 caution flags. When the checkered flag flew, Byron had a 1.192-second margin of victory to earn his 15th career Cup Series triumph.
Iowa Corn 350 Results
The Cup Series will return at Watkins Glen International on Sunday, Aug. 10. Coverage will begin at 3 p.m. ET on USA Network.
A member of the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA), Samuel also covers NASCAR for Yardbarker, Field Level Media, and Heavy Sports. He will attend the University of Arkansas in the fall of 2025.