Because he won the first race of the inaugural NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Chase, the last two events of the Round of 8 had little to no impact on William Byron’s title chances.

The heat is back on Byron now as the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Chase Round of 6 kicks off with Saturday’s Texas Roadhouse 200 at Martinsville Speedway at 1:30 pm ET on FOX Sports 1. 

“It’s a little bit hard to remember what that pressure was like in the first round since we only had one race before we won,” he said. “Now we get to go back and really focus again, which I think is probably more fun and more productive than what we’ve had to do the last two races. I’m looking forward to that intensity being back, having our backs against the wall and needing to perform well again. It’s kind of an adrenaline rush to perform well in those situations.”

Celebrating in Victory Lane has become commonplace for Byron, who leads the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series with a rookie-record six wins this season. The 18-year-old phenom also paces the series in top-fives (ten), average running position (8.0), laps led (572) and driver rating (105.8).

Byron’s lone prior start at Martinsville came in April. He finished third for his first career top-five showing.

“It’s such a difficult place compared to many of the other tracks, but it also trends toward the things I learned in short track racing with late models,” Byron said. “I think we’re going to have a great Liberty University Tundra, continue the upward trend we’ve had at the short tracks this year and improve on our third-place finish at Martinsville in the spring to hopefully get a win there this weekend.”