William Byron Claims Money in the Bank

The victory was the fifth in a row in six starts for the Donnie Wilson No. 24.

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Money in the Bank at Berlin Raceway was first decided on the lap 90 restart and then through lap traffic in the subsequent 60 laps with William Byron holding off Bubba Pollard to claim the $10,000 prize in Marne, Michigan.

Pollard finished almost two seconds back of the Donnie Wilson Motorsports No. 24 but believes his car was at least equal straight up but struggled to get around lap cars. At one point, he came across Derek Kneeland and Andrew Scheid side-by-side and that’s where he lost another second.

Meanwhile, the win was the fifth in a row for Byron since returning to regular Super Late Model competition this season and he immediately thanked spotter Branden Lines for the work atop of the tower over the run to the finish.

Byron and Lines have a working history that dates back to his initial short track run and they’ve been reunited this year in the Cup Series where their No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team is leading the playoff point standings through 13 events.

That history manifest itself on Thursday at Berlin.

"When I come back and run these races, what I take from the Cup side is how I get through lap traffic," Byron said. "And if I can get through lap traffic, I can build myself a gap.

"It's nice when the long runs happen because you can get in a rhythm and start placing your car in different places and learn some things."

After the race, Lines said he simply didn’t want to be the reason they lost the streak that dates back to Speedweeks at New Smyrna Speedway. After finishing ninth in his short track season debut at New Smyrna, Byron and team have now run off five in a row with both 100 lappers at New Smyrna, the Easter Bunny 150 at Hickory, the North South Super Late Model Showdown at Nashville and now Money in the Bank.

He’s having a blast.

"The Cup side can be rough because you have up and down weeks," Byron said. "We've had a couple of rough races so it's nice to come back and run the Super. It wasn't easy all weekend.

"I've never seen this place and feel like I wasn't running the right line. Definitely helped to get by Bubba. We got our car driving good in practice, but I didn't think we had the pace. I'm having a blast and these cars are a lot of fun."

Pollard, meanwhile, was not having a blast over the final 60 laps in traffic and cited a degree of disrespect, while also conceding it is simply part of the discipline.

He let out an expletive, and then …

"The lap cars," Pollard said. "No respect. I mean, it’s part of racing though. I feel like we put ourselves in position there with the 24. We were still saving, still early, and it would have been different if those lap cars would have raced with respect, but they didn’t. Nothing new."

Pollard took the lead from Byron on the initial start from the outside and led the first 20 laps. The Super Late Model veteran conceded the position on the Lap 90 restart and says he didn’t think it was necessary to challenge for the lead at that point.

"I was okay where I was because I thought we were good," Pollard said. "His car is tighter than hell. The only thing he could do was motor down the backstretch, but he had so much drive that he was tight. Our car was better than his, but we couldn’t get out in the open and show it.

"Just frustrated, man, because we had a good race car and couldn’t show it."

The near entirety of the race was contested with Byron, Pollard and Ty Majeski occupying the top three positions. Majeski finished almost five seconds back but said that was all his No. 91 had in their first collective visit to Berlin Raceway.

This was effectively a 150-lap test session for the $30,000-to-win Battle at Berlin in August.

What does he feel?

"Regret, this place is tough to get around," Majeski said.

"Toby (Nuttleman, crew chief) and I have never been here before so it's a tough track and we knew it would be tough. We needed a data point. We can come here and test until we're blue in the face, but until you come here and get a true data point on where the line moves during the race and the pace, how rubber gets down ...

"I feel like we could come back next time and start right here and have a better idea of what we need to do so really looking forward to that."

Berlin Raceway champions Brian Campbell and Joe Bush completed the top-five.

Campbell finished the first half of the race inside the top-10 but was penalized for missing the controlled pit stop deadline and was forced to restart at the tail end of the field with 60 to go.

"I feel like we had one taken from us by the tower," Campbell said. "We had Race Monitor on and we were consistently the fastest car on the track and just couldn't make the track position up by the end."

Money in the Bank
Berlin Raceway
June 9 2022